Transit of Venus

By Sergey Karpov
Published 2004-09-02 15:31:46

The weather in the morning of June 8th quite unexpectedly got cloudless, though granulation was seen only in some moments near the center of disc and steadiness was not excellent.

The skies were clear only during transit, just as it ended, the rain and storm started - this is the second surprise. So the weather was on our side in this day.

One more surprise is that the light arc which was especially awaited at 2 and 3 contacts was hardly seen, only during 3-d contact. I don't know how Lomonosov could discover the Venus atmosphere in 1761 in similar conditions. Maybe our filter was too dense and luminescence of atmosphere was faint and adsorbed by filter.

We received 2 groups from TV during June 8th and our former students, Konstantin with coworkers from his company and Dima Petrov (who came from Moscow for 2 days) also joined us. There were a lot of people, students, their parents...

For all it was unforgettable day. Krasnoyarsk, Russia