Thursday 7 June 2012

Venus passage 5-6 June 2012

I have come back to Tromsø for a few days to watch the last Venus passage for more than a hundred years. As the passage happened in the middle of the night here, between midnight and 7 am, Tromsø, with its midnight sun, is the perfect place to watch it. We hiked up to the top of the cable car at Fløya to get a good view of the midnight sun and Tromsø. Quite a few people had the same idea, and there was an impressive collection of telescopes set up on the deck outside the cable car station. We don't have a telescope, but we still got a good view of the sun with sun spots and Venus through our binoculars. Once back home at around 3 am we could see the passage from our upstairs north-facing bedroom.

Taken with a ca 8x zoom on the camera, through an 8x binoculars, with eclipse glasses in between, from our bedroom.

Midnight sun over Tromsø.

View over the southern part of Tromsøya with the mountains on Kvaløya in the distance.

Venus passage watchers on the deck outside the cable car station.

Tony trying to take photos through the binoculars, with eclipse glasses in between.

Double projection of the sun and Venus through the binoculars onto Tony's knee.

Tromsdalstinden basking in the sun behind us.

Starting to walk down at ca 1:30 am.

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