Amazing interest

skypilot wrote in message . ..
I think it's almost laughable at how people can get so charged up over
a large dot moving in front of the sun. I can just imagine the many
who spend hours looking at the Venus dot. I spent about 10 minutes on
the internet and it was the same old dot no matter where in the world
it was seen.

I wasn't as interested as i thought i might be, perhaps because there
was nothing i though i could personally learn from it, i checked it
out briefly, i did reflect on it's meaning to earlier astronomers for
whom this was important evidence regarding the solar system - in that
sense it's interesting. there's an 'awe' factor too, this isn't "a
dot" it's a great huge planet between us and the sun, for real,
actually there in space! [hmmm....maybe i was more interested in it
after all!]

I do enjoy catching venus via a telescope, seeing the crescent, stuff
like that - and that offers me know more knowledge i suppose, but
confirms what i know by reading astronomy books in my own eye. To
see things makes it feel a little more real. The experience is worth
it.

It would be somehting else to see the transit of Earth from Mars
though eh?

In message , David Nakamoto
writes
"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
In message , David Nakamoto
writes

troll. But he obviously thinks a Venus transit is a worthwhile thing to
make the effort and money expenditure and go out and see it. I don't.

Depends how much effort it takes. A mylar filter on your binoculars or
small scope will hardly break the bank. The larger spot size of Venus
was much more striking than the Mercury transit last year.

Obviously you were somewhere in the transit viewing region. I was not, and
not willing to spend money on something when I can view the event from the
west coast for nothing in 2012, and preceeded by either a deep partial from
LA or an annular eclipse further north 16 days earlier. I know Venus is
significantly larger than Mercury, whose transit I saw a few years back,

Sorry. A slight misunderstanding there. I thought you were advocating
not bothering to look at something that was occurring in the sky above
you. I don't think I would bother to cross a continent to see one
either.

Though historically Cook went half way round the world for one
observation.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown

Amazing interest

Group: sci.astro.amateur Date: Tue, Jun 8, 2004, 6:13pm (PDT+7) From:
(skypilot)
I think it's almost laughable at how people can get so charged up over a
large dot moving in front of the sun. I can just imagine the many who
spend hours looking at the Venus dot. I spent about 10 minutes on the
internet and it was the same old dot no matter where in the world it was
seen.
-------------------------------------------------
Because it has the subtleness of the desert's beauty: there is the stark
contrast of vast nothingness to the few flowers that can survive their
despite it, and speak of it.
Ian

In article ,
David Nakamoto wrote:
And . . .

Just because something is rare does it have automatic interest for everyone,
even those interested in the general subject matter. If you were, and went
to the effort to see it, good for you. I was sincerely not, but I don't see
the need to put me down for my decision.

--
Sincerely,
--- Dave

Actually, if you don't travel to see it, a Venus transit will be more
common than a total solar eclipse, since from a fixed point on the
Earth's surface on the average you'll see one Venus transit about every
100 years but only one total solar eclipse every 400 years.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
A man is a god in ruins.
--- Duke Ellington
----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Paul Lawler" wrote in message
et...
"David Nakamoto" wrote in message
...

Obviously you were somewhere in the transit viewing region. I was not,
and
not willing to spend money on something when I can view the event from
the
west coast for nothing in 2012, and preceeded by either a deep partial
from
LA or an annular eclipse further north 16 days earlier. I know Venus is
significantly larger than Mercury, whose transit I saw a few years back,
but
it's not like a total solar eclipse. Yes, there's the intellectual
angle
of
it being over 120 years since the last one, but that didn't make much
difference with me and a lot of people on the west coast.

You are correct... it's not like a total solar eclipse. It's a much more
rare phenomena than a total solar eclipse.






--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/
http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/

"David Nakamoto" wrote in message
...
And . . .

Just because something is rare does it have automatic interest for
everyone,
even those interested in the general subject matter. If you were, and
went
to the effort to see it, good for you. I was sincerely not, but I don't
see
the need to put me down for my decision.

Despite your apparent paranoia, I was not putting you down. I simply pointed
out that a transit of Venus was a much more rare astronomical occurrence
than a total solar eclipse. Whether or not you think it worth observing
"makes no nevermind" to me.

"Oncologist" wrote:

You get a feel for how thick it's atmosphere really is

Hmm... Venus has an atmospheric scale height of 15.4 km, so 99% of
the atmosphere is within 70 km of the surface. Compared to the 12,100
km diameter of Venus, that means the atmosphere is less around 1% of
the observed radius.
Every picture I've seen of the halo (including optically, by
myself, on the 8th - wonderful view!) is thicker than that.

--
Brian Davis

In article ,
Brian Davis wrote:

"Oncologist" wrote:

You get a feel for how thick it's atmosphere really is

Hmm... Venus has an atmospheric scale height of 15.4 km, so 99% of
the atmosphere is within 70 km of the surface. Compared to the 12,100
km diameter of Venus, that means the atmosphere is less around 1% of
the observed radius.
Every picture I've seen of the halo (including optically, by
myself, on the 8th - wonderful view!) is thicker than that.

....and every picture you've seen of a star (including optically, by
yourself, on any night) shows a much larger disk of the star than the
actual size of the stars' disks.

A layer 15 km thick would appear a mere 0.08 arc seconds thick at
Venus' distance at 8 June. You'd need a diffraction limited
telescope with 1.4 meter aperture, *and* you'd also need to get above
the Earth's atmosphere to actually get 0.08 arcsec resolution.

Btw seeing effects are usually worse during daytime, when the solar
radiation heats the ground, producing turbulence in the atmosphere.


In addition, the Sun isn't a point light source. Therefore it's
highly likely that several scale heights of Venus' atmosphere helps
in producing this "Luminous ring" (or part of a ring): different
layers in Venus' atmosphere refract by different amounts, bringing
sunlight from different parts of the solar disk into our line of view.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN
e-mail: pausch at stockholm dot bostream dot se
WWW: http://www.stjarnhimlen.se/
http://home.tiscali.se/pausch/