by Rod Pommier
Telescope: Celestron Super C8 Plus with Byers Fork Mount. Camera: Canon EOS 20D DSLR. Exposures: ISO 800, 1/1000 second, all exposures. Other equipment: Thousand Oaks Optical glass, full aperture, type 2 solar filter.
My wife, SuEllen, and I traveled from cloudy, rainy, Portland, OR, to Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii for the transit of Venus for 2 reasons: the entire transit would be visible from Maui and, at 10,000 feet elevation, we would be likely to be above any clouds. I brought the above telescope and camera and filters to photograph the entire transit.
The strategy paid off as most of Maui was cloudy and rainy on June 5; there was even rain at the Haleakala Visitors Center at 7000 feet elevation! However, we had crystal clear skies for the entire event. There was a price to pay, as the wind gusts were substantial, but I was still able to get good images.
The image is a composite showing the entire transit. The sequence begins at the upper left limb of the Sun, showing the black drop effect of 2nd contact at 12:28 HST. The sequence continues with exposures of Venus' trek across the Sun taken approximately every 40 minutes. The sequence ends at the upper right limb of the Sun, showing the black drop effect of 3rd contact. The black drop effect of 3rd contact is somewhat subdued due to atmospheric extinction with the Sun being much lower and near the horizon at the end of the transit. The sunspot positions changed noticeably during the duration of the transit, due to the Sun's rotation over the course of more than 6 hours. The sunspot group positions are shown for fairly close to the time of mid-transit. Faculae can be seen near the lower right limb of the Sun and granulations are present throughout the solar disk.