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Old June 6th 12, 10:24 PM posted to rec.pets.cats.anecdotes
Yowie
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Default OT Venus transit today

On 7/06/2012 5:20 AM, ---MIKE--- wrote:
I didn't see this one because of persistent clouds. I did see the one
in 2004. Last night I watched the NASA channel which was showing the
whole thing.


It was howling wind and driving rain for the morning (the transit
happened between about 8am and 2pm for us), although it was supposed to
clear up for the afternoon.

I'd made a pinhole camera to watch, but quickly discovered that I'd need
a very large box for the sun to appear as more than a pinpoint of light.

But it just so happened I was there on lunch break when a cow orker
dragged out his proper telescope with a solar filter, and I was the one
looking down it glumly when the sun poked out from the cloud for a
matter of seconds and I saw it. The next person had to wait for another
10 minutes before there was another briefest of cloud breaks.

I don't know if anyone else saw it, because my lunch break finished and
I had to go back tot he office.

The irony of the whole day, though, was that by 3pm (when the transit
was well and truly over) the sky was blue, and I had multiple pin-hole
camera images of the sun all through my office.

Still, I am one of the rare ones in this patch of Australia that
actually got to see it 'live' rather than through a webcast. And for
that I feel truly blessed.

Yowie