Transit of Venus--Trying to Get Ready

Hello? Anyone outside the astronomy community heard of this event!? I
have not done a scientific survey but I have mentioned the ToV to more
than a dozen people in various venues, including employees at Parks &
Recreation Departments in three Mid-Atlantic states, and not one person
I talked to had heard of the event. And of those I told about it, not
one was interested.

I have talked to two families from Arizona (Phoenix and Tempe) who did
not know about the recent annular solar eclipse until they saw TV video
(Phoenix) or an Internet report (Tempe) after the event.

I have no idea what this says about the media, American curiosity, or
the price of poodle puppies, but it doesn't seem quite right to me.
There are a hell of a lot of sciences about which I know nothing
whatsoever, but chances are if some big or widely anticipated event is
happening in that science I will have heard about it, even if I elect
not to tune in or I tune in and don't understand it all. I kind of
thought that the same would be true of other members of the
public--aware, at least, even if not greatly interested or lacking in
expertise.

My chances of seeing the ToV are probably near zero. I have pored over
Google Earth and maps.google.com and several weather sites looking for
a place within a hypothetical 20-hour drive of my East-Central Maryland
home (12 hr drive on Monday, 8 on Tuesday with an early start, let us
say), and I have not seen anyplace that looks good.

I'm as ready as the next person to jump for a sucker hole, so I rolled
the dice and chose a spot not too far from home that has an excellent
view to the west (an undisclosed location on the eastern shore of the
Chesapeake Bay, looking westward across the Bay). I managed to track
down the property owner and get permission to set up my gear, and I
will be traveling regardless of the weather at departure time. I'm
already packing my kit against a list that I have been working on for
over a month.

If I don't get a sucker hole I'll sit in the car and eat my cold roast
beef sandwich for dinner before crossing the Bay Bridge and heading
home.

Heavy local fog foiled my effort (and that of practically my whole
club) in 2004. People very near our observing site had a great view.

My gear for the ToV consists of my 1982 Questar Duplex with a
full-aperture Questar solar filter and the built-in equatorial mount on
a heavy-duty camera tripod; a Canon 60Da; and a MacBook Pro. Also a
home-built laptop shade that my wife and I made and that is pretty
neat, if we do say so ourselves.

Please see http://www.flickr.com/photos/primeval/ for a photo of a
setup in a practice session and the resulting photo of the solar disc.
Click images to enlarge.

I very much wish you all clear skies on Tuesday evening and always.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 20:22:50 -0400, Davoud wrote:

Hello? Anyone outside the astronomy community heard of this event!?

I've had at least a dozen people ask me how to see it, or if I was
going to watch it myself (over the last week). It seems to be getting
a lot of coverage in the mainstream press, which is how these people
learned of it.

On 6/3/2012 6:57 PM, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 20:22:50 -0400, Davoud wrote:

Hello? Anyone outside the astronomy community heard of this event!?

I've had at least a dozen people ask me how to see it, or if I was
going to watch it myself (over the last week). It seems to be getting
a lot of coverage in the mainstream press, which is how these people
learned of it.

Right; it's on the news everywhere here (Silicon Valley). Yesterday I
received an email from Orion regarding items for the Venus Transit and
this morning I received email from S&T hawking their new Venus globe per
"shopatsky.com" SKU #VENUS for US$99.95.

The URLs in the email seem keyed to me otherwise I would have posted
them here.

Davoud:
Hello? Anyone outside the astronomy community heard of this event!?

Chris L Peterson:
I've had at least a dozen people ask me how to see it, or if I was
going to watch it myself (over the last week). It seems to be getting
a lot of coverage in the mainstream press, which is how these people
learned of it.

One conclusion that I could draw from this would be tough to swallow:
just about everyone I know or meet is an ignoramus.

Another possibility is that people on the right coast are not as laid
back as those in many other parts of the country; they are too wrapped
up in their work and personal lives to pay attention to this sort of
thing.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 23:12:06 -0400, Davoud wrote:

Another possibility is that people on the right coast are not as laid
back as those in many other parts of the country; they are too wrapped
up in their work and personal lives to pay attention to this sort of
thing.

Perhaps. I do notice a significant increase in interest in the sky
here in rural Colorado as compared to my previous home in California.
When you live closer to nature, you're more aware of it.

On Jun 3, 7:22*pm, Davoud wrote:
Hello? Anyone outside the astronomy community heard of this event!? I
have not done a scientific survey but I have mentioned the ToV to more
than a dozen people in various venues, including employees at Parks &
Recreation Departments in three Mid-Atlantic states, and not one person
I talked to had heard of the event. And of those I told about it, not
one was interested.

I have talked to two families from Arizona (Phoenix and Tempe) who did
not know about the recent annular solar eclipse until they saw TV video
(Phoenix) or an Internet report (Tempe) after the event.

I have no idea what this says about the media, American curiosity, or
the price of poodle puppies, but it doesn't seem quite right to me.
There are a hell of a lot of sciences about which I know nothing
whatsoever, but chances are if some big or widely anticipated event is
happening in that science I will have heard about it, even if I elect
not to tune in or I tune in and don't understand it all. I kind of
thought that the same would be true of other members of the
public--aware, at least, even if not greatly interested or lacking in
expertise.
usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

We're going to have a Venus party here at our factory. We'll have
scopes set up, both white light and H-alpha, along with wine and
cheese for those who will attend. We sent out notices to everybody we
know and have gotten quite good response. In fact our dance club will
attend this event - goes to show ya that even something as polar
opposite to science as dance can be of interest to these people.

We have a number of employees who are amateur astronomers, and they
will not be attending our event. Instead, they are each going to
spearhead other public events in various places across town - to local
parks, to a local church, etc. In that way they are multiplying the
outreach effort, so to speak.

On the other hand in talking to my own mother, who knows that I'm into
astronomy, she didn't have a clue that Venus would transit the sun,
and in fact did not know what that means, did not know that Venus is
one of the solar system planets, and even after explaining to her how
Venus orbits around the sun, still had no idea what i was talking
about. Of course I should hand her some slack since she is 88 years
old.

Uncarollo

Davoud:
Another possibility is that people on the right coast are not as laid
back as those in many other parts of the country; they are too wrapped
up in their work and personal lives to pay attention to this sort of
thing.

Chris L Peterson:
Perhaps. I do notice a significant increase in interest in the sky
here in rural Colorado as compared to my previous home in California.
When you live closer to nature, you're more aware of it.

Whoa! I take issue with the notion that Coloradans "live closer to
nature" than some of the rest of us. Pennsylvania and New York both
outrank any state west of the Mississippi in percentage of forest
cover, e.g. (North Central Research Station‹U.S. Forest Service).

Pennsylvania: 55% forest. New York, 51%. Colorado: 18% (North Central
Research Station‹U.S. Forest Service).

So, it all depends on what you call "close to nature," right? I would
argue that we all live equally close to nature, even Manhattanites, and
that only our awareness of our surroundings varies.

Hell, I've got more trees in my back yard than the whole damned State
of Colorado has!

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

On Jun 4, 8:25*pm, Davoud wrote:

Hell, I've got more trees in my back yard than the whole damned State
of Colorado has!

So have I.. and I can't see the sky either! ;-)

It's like living in a leafy well!

Riddip-riddip.

On Mon, 04 Jun 2012 14:25:44 -0400, Davoud wrote:

Whoa! I take issue with the notion that Coloradans "live closer to
nature" than some of the rest of us.

I said here in _rural_ Colorado, not all of Colorado.

Pennsylvania and New York both
outrank any state west of the Mississippi in percentage of forest
cover, e.g. (North Central Research Station‹U.S. Forest Service).

And for all I know, folks living in rural communities in those places
are more in tune with nature, as well.

So, it all depends on what you call "close to nature," right? I would
argue that we all live equally close to nature, even Manhattanites, and
that only our awareness of our surroundings varies.

In using the term I was referring to the awareness people have with
nature. I do think that people who live surrounded by relatively
unaltered nature tend to be more aware of it.

On Mon, 04 Jun 2012 12:57:03 -0600, Chris L Peterson
wrote:
On Mon, 04 Jun 2012 14:25:44 -0400, Davoud wrote:
Whoa! I take issue with the notion that Coloradans "live closer to
nature" than some of the rest of us.

I said here in _rural_ Colorado, not all of Colorado.

Well, it's not particularly surprising that people who live closer to
nature physically also live closer to nature mentally. Good ol'
adaptation to your surroundings....