Transit of Venus, 2004 June 8

Lorraine Crook

Although I could have observed the transit of Venus from my garden, I decided to mount an independent ‘expedition’ in my home village of Wootton (south of Northampton) so that local people could be given an opportunity to view this rare event. Having stayed at a friend’s house the previous night, I began my 2-mile journey home shortly after 5.00 am. As I cycled up the hill on the London Road, the early morning mist began to lift, and the Sun broke through the woods behind King Edward I’s monument to his beloved Queen Eleanor – a monument which, standing for more than 700 years, has seen more than a quarter of a million sunrises.

When I arrived home I collected my equipment – a 90-mm SCT by Prinz, a video camera, the accompanying tripods, notebooks and pencils, and so on – and then walked about half a mile to the village recreation ground. As I began to set up the instruments at about 5.45 there was immediate interest from early risers, who were either on their way to work or were walking their dogs – and the four-legged locals also showed considerable interest. Unfortunately, cloud obscured the Sun at the time of ingress, but over the following three hours or so I was able to observe the transit with little disturbance, and I made several drawings which included the few faint sunspots towards the centre of the disk.

Later in the morning I took my equipment to the local primary school (by prior arrangement), and consequently 400 children and their teachers, and some of the parents, were able to see the transit. It was, of course, viewed by projection, but it took quite some time for the queue to pass by, and I needed to frequently remind everyone not to walk in front of the telescope nor to be tempted to look into the top of it. At lunch-time I set up the telescope in the garden of the village pub (the Yeoman of England), where many of the customers and staff showed considerable interest in seeing the transit – particularly when told of the significance of the event.

Many of these people were obviously impressed when they realised that they were seeing a planet in front of the Sun; and perhaps some of them – especially the children – were sufficiently inspired to take more interest in astronomy. The conditions were almost perfect, and I felt excited and satisfied that I had been able to observe such a rare event. And as a final touch, a friend later told me that to escape possible unfavourable weather he had travelled to Egypt to observe the transit – but his grand-daughter had seen it with my telescope at Wootton primary school.