Tuesday's Transit of Venus

On Tuesday, something happened that won't happen again until December 2117.  From our viewpoint here on Earth, the planet Venus crossed directly in front of the Sun, blocking out some of its light and causing a baby eclipse.  This event is called a transit (as in "Venus transited in front of the Sun").  A group of us took a few telescopes to the roof of the nearby parking garage and took advantage of a perfectly-timed break in the clouds to observe the event (well, part of it anyway -- it lasted several hours and ended long after the Sun had set for us in Atlanta). 

Both of the pictures below were taken with my cell phone.  The first is an image of the Sun projected by some mirrors onto a piece of paper where it could be safely viewed.  The second took some careful alignment of my phone camera lens through the eyepiece of a small telescope with a solar filter.  I'm very pleased with how both turned out (although they're certainly not as detailed as this photo or this one).  

Other than the Sun itself, Venus is quite obvious in both photos.  Sunspots are easily visible in the first photo (as well as a few thin wispy clouds that got in the way; they look like faint fingerprints or blotches).  And if you look around the edge of the Sun in the second photo, you can see several solar flares and prominences.  Each one is caused by ionized gases trapped in the magnetic field of the Sun and is approximately the size of the whole planet Earth.

Isn't astronomy fun?