Venus!!

Jun 05, 2012 18:58

Watching the transit of Venus on http://venustransit.nasa.gov/webcasts/nasaedge/. OMG SO COOL OMG.

news, i am an enormous geek

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delta_november June 6 2012, 12:25:02 UTC
That was pretty awesome. I found that if I stacked eclipse-viewing glasses on top of my regular eyeglasses I (a) looked like a goof but (b) could see the transit. Without my eyeglasses I just didn't have the eyesight to resolve it.

Unless we go all posthuman, this will be the last Venus transit in our lifetimes. But there is a transit of Mercury in 2016!

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sylvia_rachel June 6 2012, 19:24:31 UTC
A friend of mine built a pinhole-camera-type viewer with her son for the purposes of the transit. She is a way better mom than me ;)

I wouldn't be able to use eclipse-viewing glasses without my regular glasses, either. I guess this is a good argument for contact lenses but somehow...

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delta_november June 6 2012, 21:27:37 UTC
Did your friend have much success? I have a friend who attempted a pinhole camera but lacked the resolution to actually see Venus.

I'm not sure a once-in-a-century event is sufficient justification for contacts :).

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sylvia_rachel June 7 2012, 01:17:36 UTC
What she said was that the pictures weren't great, but I think she felt that was a feature rather than a bug, in that it helps her "born digital" kid (same age as mine) appreciate how stupendously cool the NASA images are...

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