Venus Transit via NASA USTREAM
As I write this, Venus is nearly out of its 78,000 miles per hour sun transit. Around 3p, I brought up venustransit.nasa.gov/transitofvenus on the external monitor and left it on most of the afternoon. Apparently, right now, it is at 3rd contact, which is a term I’ve just learned. The NASA video from Hawaii has streamed very well and they’ve had some entertaining commentary and occasional video of people there. It was also interesting to see the several large sunspots.
Here’s a great black & white pic from Bend (not mine).
I would have liked to have driven the kids down to the Sunriver Observatory and looked at it through the telescopes or eclipse glasses, but the timing didn’t work out very well as the twins needed to get stuff around for their coast trip. Plus, we couldn’t really afford the gas. We did bring out the pinhole projection box—I could see the sun clearly, but alas, not Venus—the projected image was just too small.
Seems odd that the solar eclipse was just over two weeks ago. I’m glad I got to experience both of them, even though today’s was only virtual. I only wish I could get my family a little bit more excited about these things.
Tomorrow will be busy since I didn’t get much done today other than getting my step-son to his 7 a.m. dentist appointment, and packing some vegan food for the coast trip. I’m not confident that the school is going to care enough to make sure they have vegan options to eat—other than I know they are bringing some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So at least the twins will have plenty of backup options available and won’t go hungry.
And tomorrow is farmer’s market day: I get to make my first payment for the CSA and pick up box #1!
Beezelbarb 