what we learnt today

Eclipse viewers that were designed to view an eclipse of the sun by the moon will not allow you to view a transit of Venus. The image of the sun is simply too small to be able to see the infinitesimally smaller image of Venus.

But, not to be daunted, we improvised.

First we made a big pin-hole viewer. The longer the distance between the pinhole and the screen on which the image is viewed, the larger the image will be. So we used the coffee table. We taped cardboard to one end, with a pinhole in the middle. We covered it with blankets so as to block out the light. We mounted a white piece of paper at the other end for a screen.


To view, simply stick your head inside!


This worked. The image was just big enough to see the tiny, tiny speck that was Venus.
But what worked much better was this.

Glen rigged up a small set of binoculars so that the image of the sun was projected onto a piece of paper on the ground. The image was large enough to view the transit.



Here are the best of the photos we managed.

9:30am


10:00am


12:30pm


So now you all know what to do for next time. 2117.