Might as Well be Walkin’ on the Sun

 

Well, it sure appeared that way yesterday when we were watching the planet Venus make it’s way across the Sun. It began it’s journey in the top right corner of the Sun and slowly moved down the side.

We began watching Venus’s journey around 4:30pm, wearing our Solar Eclipse glasses. And then our neighbor invited us over to view the spectacle through his telescope, reflected onto a piece of white paper.

You will notice that Venus is in the bottom right corner in the photos and that is because the telescope flips the image by the time it is reflected through the lens.

I also did some post editing to make the image of Venus stand out better, by darkening and adding more contrast, which not only shows off Venus, but also shows a few of the Solar Flares, or Sun Spots, too.

You can see how the image was carried through the telescope in this photo of my son Jackson holding the piece of paper.

We all kept our eyes on the sun with our Solar Eclipse glasses, too. Here you can see my daughter Jenna viewing Venus traveling across the Sun.

The first couple images of Venus making it’s way across the sun were taken about 5pm.

Then about 2 hours later, we came back outside to see how far Venus had traveled……

Quite a bit, as you can see.

(In the photo above you’ll notice that part of the sun seems to missing. Actually it was sunset and the sun was dropping down behind the mountains beyond our house. Remember how the telescope flips the images, so what is up is actually down?)

My kids, neighbors and I really enjoyed this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you missed it…I’m sorry, but you’ll never get the opportunity again, as this rare event only happens every 105 years.