Transit Of Venus

 

I had been anticipating this once in a lifetime event for a couple weeks now. I watched in horror this morning as a big wall of clouds blew over the valley. I anxiously watched the skies, and restlessly checked the weather maps hoping that there would be a clearing and was losing all hope. This wont happen again for over 100 years, well past my expected lifetime and I am going to miss it because of a storm that isn’t even going to give us rain. I was not pleased.

On my way home from work I noticed a gap in the wall of clouds on the horizon.

From what I could tell the sun still had some time to set in the west before getting near there so I tried to busy myself before heading out to a better viewing area than my yard.

There is a little trail head by my house that over looks the flat land in front of Antelope Island so I took off out there.

After waiting in the cold for about an hour, it looks like the sun is almost ready to come out. Come on little buddy!

Success!!! We have transit!!!

I was a little surprised it was so tiny! But if I really use my brain and think about it, that makes sense, I guess I was just hoping it would be a bit bigger.

And then it started going behind some clouds again, but I kind of like how these turned out as well.

To capture these shots I used the same custom rig I made to capture the eclipse we had a few weeks ago, which was a cardboard sleeve affixed to one of my lens filters, with the solar filter fitted in. Using a tripod, I then dialed in the same settings I used with the eclipse. I snapped a few pictures, reviewed what I got on the screen, made some adjustments and eventually thought about using my remote shutter to reduce movement of my tripod. I am rather pleased with the results.

and back behind another bank of clouds. I got about 15-20 minutes to enjoy this amazing event, and I am so happy and thankful that I got that. This was seriously the coolest thing ever!