Venus Transit 2004
Venus Transit, June 8th 2004. Observations from the US Embassy, New Delhi, India. Team Members: Dr Timothy R. Young, UND, Dr Ron Marsh, UND, Dr Tim Lawlor, Penn State, Vishnu Reddy Kanupuru, UND, Pratibha Kumar, Spaceguard India, R.H.B. Ramamurthy (Amateur Astronomer)
(L to R) Ron, Tim Young and Pratibha testing the computer network prior to the transit on June 6th.
Pratibha cleaning the American School's 6-inch Meade Dob prior to the transit on June 6th.
Tim Lawlor and R.H.B. Ramamurthy (Pavan) relax under the shade on the day of transit on June 8th.
Special Thanks to our friends at the US Embassy, New Delhi, India, for their help and support.
Richard Hanrahan, Phil Budig, Nyda Budig, Marco, Steve Carozza (American School)
Instruments used for the transit. (L to R) Meade 5-inch refractor on LXD55 mount (UND), Celestron Orange Tube 8-inch SCT and Tele Vue Ranger with Coronado H-alpah filter on Celestron Advanced CG-5 GOTO mount (UND), Celestron C8 black tube (Penn State U.), Celestron 80mm F/5 short tube (thanks Darrel) on Byers Cam-trak mount (my personal instrument). The 5-inch was used visually for observing the transit, Orange tube C8 had digital video setup, the H-alpha scope was used with my Fuji finepix s5000 digital camera for still shots, Black C8 had an ST9E for full disk images and the 80mm was used for the main webcast during the transit with a Philips ToUCam.
People watch as Ron chats away in the chatroom built into the live webcast. The 80mm scope with webcam is seen to the left.
Elephant Encounter! Large Indian elephant landed outside our hotel a few nights before the transit. Tim and Ron check out the animal from a safe distance!
KIds from the US Embassy pose with the American School's 6-inch Meade dobsonian telescope after the transit. The scope was primarily used to show the event to the public.
A sequence of shots showing the egress of Venus from the solar disk at the end of transit. Venus could be seen as a tiny dot to the lower right corner of the image. Passing clouds are visible over the sun. The images were shot using Fuji finepix s5000 digital camera using eyepiece projection (40mm) on the Tele Vue Ranger with Coronado H-alpha filter. These are raw unprocessed images.
White light image taken through the
6-inch Meade dobsonian telescope with Fuji finepix s5000 digital camera using eyepiece projection (40mm).
My first try at H-alpha image processing. I used a method described in the July 2004 issue of Sky and Telescope to get the false color images of the transit. The right image is noisy because of clouds. Images were processed in Photoshop 7.0.  The images were shot using Fuji finepix s5000 digital camera using eyepiece projection (40mm) on the Tele Vue Ranger with Coronado H-alpha filter.
35mm Film Images
35mm negative film shots of the transit taken with 500mm mirror lens (Baader solar filter) and Zenit SLR on a fixed tripod. The film got stuck during the thrid frame and I ended up getting 3 images on one frame! Some frames were lost to durst storm and clouds.
35mm negative film shots of the transit taken with 12-inch LX200 SCT with 3-inch off-axis aperture (Baader solar filter) and Pentax SLR. Some frames were lost to durst storm and clouds.
Click on the images to enlarge
Click on the images to enlarge
Pretty Pictures
Solar Images
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