[Chaos-l] Venus Transit at Morehead Planetarium

Wed Jun 6 09:16:01 EDT 2012

I was at the Goddard Space Flight Center gathering. It seemed like a pretty
good crowd, and there were events for the kids. I liked the 'solar
cookies,' sugar cookies with plasma (icing), granules (sugar sprinkles),
sun spots (chocolate chips), and coronal wind (twizzlers). There were also
pictures of the sun and a few lectures. Telescopes were set up, but we
never got to use them. Clouds rolled in about 5, looking more and more
ominous. They didn't look like they would be breaking any time soon. There
was a live showing in the auditorium of the event. Several of us watched
until Venus first touched the edge of the sun, then noticed that the
doppler radar looked pretty spotty. We piled into a car and drove for about
twenty miles, pulling off once the skies seemed clear. No one had a
telescope, but it was still pretty amazing to see through the glasses
provided to us at the event.
Glad Morehead had such a successful event!
Ashley

On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Allen Davis <starstorm151 at embarqmail.com>wrote:

> I am really glad you guys were able to do this.
> Wish I could have experienced that..buy had no time to travel.thank
> goodness my coworker offered to cover for me and I left on time to set up
> st Medoc.and I was so glad oI had my Genesis truly a portable scope with a
> give minute setup
>
> Great job guys
>
> *Connected by DROID on Verizon Wireless*
>
>
> -----Original message-----
>
> *From: *Robert Nielsen <robertnielsen at nc.rr.com>*
> To: *CHAOS Mailing List <chaos-l at rtpnet.org>, Medoc Mountain Mailing List
> <medoc-mountain-men at rapideye.us>*
> Sent: *Wed, Jun 6, 2012 12:03:56 GMT+00:00*
> Subject: *[Chaos-l] Venus Transit at Morehead Planetarium
>
> Well, while Allen was sneaking views over at Medoc, and some of my other
> friends were in their yards with binoculars and scopes, almost a dozen of
> us CHAOS members setup at the Morehead Planetarium for what was going to be
> a crazy event!
>
> The skies were clear as we setup. 5-6 of us (Jayme, Phil, Mark, Walter,
> and some others) setup their scopes on the 4th floor balcony of the
> planetarium, which seemed to be a really good spot! Thanks for Mickey and
> Amy and other folks from the planetarium for figuring that out. And a few
> of us (including Jack and myself) setup down on the lawn near the building.
> I setup down there thinking that having scopes in two completely separate
> areas would help the flow of people ... and I think it did. Speaking of
> people, quite a few showed up ... like over 3000! There were people
> *everywhere* in the front parking lot of the planetarium, as well as inside
> (seeing shows).
>
> From the minute I had the scope on the mount, people wanted to look
> through it (even though the transit wouldn't start for another hour or so).
> I would talk to people and explain about the Ha scope and how it showed
> only one wavelength of light, how the pressure tuner adjusted for doppler
> shift of the Ha frequency), and people seemed to be generally interested!
> In fact, I talked to one of the gentlemen who was most interested and
> eventually found out that he knew some people that I had worked with in
> Zurich! All through the night it was a very friendly crowd!
>
> Then, right before the transit started, a big ominous cloud appeared. It
> just sat there and didn't move, like most of the others had previously.
> When a break would seem to almost appear, another cloud would combine with
> it and block the view. I looked at the Doppler radar on my smartphone, and
> saw rain heading south from Roxboro. At that point I was planning what I
> would do if the rain appeared and was telling people it didn't look good.
>
> But then around 6:15, the clouds started to break. I quickly mounted my
> camera to the scope and took a few pictures (nothing spectacular ... but I
> do have pictures of the transit!) and then after a couple of minutes I
> finally let people see the transit, starting with the man who had stood at
> the front of the line for the full half hour that it was cloudy.
>
> The actual transit in the Lunt scope looked great! Many times, people
> would step up to the scope and go "wow!" They had only seen the transit
> through the cardboard "eclipse glasses" that had been handed out, and in
> those the planet was only a pinprick. In the scope ... it was a completely
> obvious large dot. No problem seeing it at all. After the initial viewing
> of Venus on the Sun, I would tell people to look at the edge of the Sun for
> "flames" (prominences) and when they saw them, people literally freaked
> out. One young lady got back in line three times, with three different sets
> of friends, to show them the view of the sun "with flames".
>
> After the initial "big cloud" at the start, we essentially had no clouds
> until right about the time the Sun went behind trees and the horizon from
> ground level. So the people kept coming, and coming, and coming. Like I
> said, the estimates were that there were between 3000 and 4000 people
> there, and 8-9 scopes, so you do the math. I easily had 300 people look
> through my scope - including one very young girl (I urged the dad to put
> her up to the eyepiece to say she had seen the transit) all the way to
> elderly grandmothers who had a little trouble finding the image in the
> eyepiece ... but did eventually.
>
> The worst part of the evening was when the Sun set behind trees ... and
> the event was over, with people still left in line. Nothing much I could
> do! Some of the views through the trees were very nice ... at one point I
> saw (yes, I inserted myself in line around 50 times to "check the focus"
> and view the transit myself) the Sun behind tree branches, with a solar
> prominence clearly visible at the top, and Venus clearly visible at the
> bottom.
>
> When the Sun dropped below the trees from ground level, a cloud bank
> appeared far off in the west and stopped the viewing from up on the
> balcony, I believe (someone from up there should correct me if I'm wrong).
> So I started packing up, although I was still talking to people (including
> some cute girls ... don't always get that at observing sessions) for a half
> hour after it was over. I also talked to Amy and Mickey from the
> planetarium and heard some of the stories they had trying to manage the
> throng of people. And I also helped some folks bring the equipment down
> from the roof. I'm glad I did, because Jayme caught what we think was a
> weather balloon in his refractor! Very cool ... you could clearly see the
> balloon itself, with a payload swinging in the wind below it. I wonder if
> they were trying to get pictures of the transit from up there! Before we
> left, we think it popped ... since it disappeared from view.
>
> All in all, it was one of the most exciting public outreach events I've
> ever been to. One can only think that we touched many, many lives last
> night helping them see this rare event ... and I know I was thanked over
> and over by visitors for being a part of it. Kudos to the planetarium for
> putting it together, and kudos to CHAOS for helping out. Perhaps we ignited
> a spark in a few people last night!
>
> Robert
>
> Sent from my iPad
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-- 
Ashley
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