Transit of Venus 2012, Clouded out in Brooklyn

A couple of dozen folks showed up in Shore Road Park hoping to get a peek at Venus transiting the Sun today, but the weather did not cooperate. After setting up shortly after 5pm, I had to cover the equipment due to some light rain which passed through. Eventually the Sun peeked through a thin spot in the clouds long enough for me to get the (filtered) binoculars pointed at it and several people were able to get a brief look before the Sun disappeared back behind the clouds. Alas, that was it for the day. Around 7:20pm, I packed up. The western sky was cleared in some places, but too high up for the Sun to have any hope of making a last minute appearance.

The image below is from June 8, 2004 and was taken as the Sun was rising through the morning haze. No filter was used, and the image (taken with film) is a bit overexposed, even when the negative was scanned directly.

[img_assist|nid=945|title=2004 Venus Transit at Sunrise (Brooklyn, NY)|desc=|link=node|align=middle|width=640|height=422]

It wasn’t long after the above picture that the Sun rose too high and bright for unfiltered pictures. I switched to the filtered 1300mm telescope and took more pictures like this one.

[img_assist|nid=946|title=2004 Venus Transit (Brooklyn, NY)|desc=|link=node|align=middle|width=639|height=640]