Hey folks,
sorry for those who tried and didn't get a glimpse! Congrats to those who made it. So, here's my story:
I went to our cottage yesterday with Dad and Abby (i.e. Maggie renamed) - Mom had to stay at home. The weather was very doubtful, forecasts saying that thick clouds would roll in just at the wrong time. We set the alarm clock anyway and got up at 4 am.
Dad told me the skies were clear but I didn't believe him until I saw for myself: Yes, it was mostly clear with dawn already bright, the less-than-full-moon hanging in the South and just some thin clouds. I got dressed, grabbed my stuff and the doggie and started while Dad meant to follow later, after a short breakfast. A crimson red pillar of light was pointing out the spot on the horizon where the sun was, ready to rise with the transit in progress. Just some thin stripes of cloud were in that vicinity - not perfectly clear but sufficient.
Within 15 minutes we reached our chosen spot: A beautiful hill which had its very own vegetation of low grasses, certain flowers and even some Sedum-species, very different from the surrounding plain meadows - much like an island in the landscape. Chiefly an island with a very good view of the horizon to the East and the Northeast. This early human visit scared away two roes, a female pheasant and some bird of prey.
The light pillar had grown dimmer and turned a reddish golden tone. A few minutes to go. Abby sat down in front of me and seemed to gaze at the spot where the Sun was about to rise.
Dad was being late due to his breakfast; he missed the very start of sunrise and came up while the Sun was coming up, too.
But I didn't miss anything: Two minutes before calculated sunrise, a brighter orange horizontal stripe appeared at the base of those thin clouds. That early? Hell, yeah! Sunrise is calculated for the center of the solar disc; the upper limb has to appear before that. So I watched intently as that stripe grew broader and swelled upwards into a distorted Sun. And sure enough, I discovered a tiny black spot in the upper part! Harder to see than I expected, but it was there.
Meanwhile even dad had arrived and the Sun was up. There was a break in the observation because the Sun was too bright for direct watching but too dim for the special filters. But finally it became visible through the filters. Now we could observe the tiny spot that was Venus through the special eclipse glasses and even through the binoculars we had equipped with solar filters. How huge Venus was at 8-fold magnification! Not just a dot anymore but truly a small disc. Much darker and much clearer than the three groups of sunspots we could see.
We fled from the unpleasantly cold wind and left the top of the hill, going a few meters down its slope. A lark used the free space and sang its song just five or seven meters above the hilltop while we kept watching Venus as it slowly slid across the solar face, approaching its limb and thus becoming harder to see with the naked eye. What impressed me most were these things: The sheer rarity of the event. The clarity of the view - the perfect little circle with its sharp rim and the deep contrast to the solar surface - much deeper than the contrast of the sunspots. And of course the ability to watch the motions in the solar system within less than two hours - experiencing their motion live!
Well, the clouds rolled in before Venus and the Sun parted. It was 7.18 am CEDT when I last saw it; after that the Sun was nothing but a brighter spot in the clouds without any definite shape. So we missed the egress by half an hour, but so what?
So there were two transits of Venus in our lifetime and I managed to see both!
Cheers!
Markus
