Transit of Venus June 5, 2012 Event

Here are some pictures from the last in a lifetime event. The white circle is the Sun and the little black dot is Venus.  Venus from our perspective is 30 times smaller than the Sun which is why it looks so small. But really the diameter of Venus is slightly smaller than Earth's.  

There were various ways that people were able to safely look at the transit, one of the ways involved placing a funnel on the eyepiece of a telescope with a special screen on the end so the image is projected onto the screen.

Projected image of the beginning of the transit.

The tiny dot is Venus at the 10 o'clock position. The lower half is clouds. 

 I was in charge of the binoculars which were used to project an image onto a paper.  I had to aim the binoculars just right so that we could see the Sun but without looking though the eyepieces because the concentrated light and super brightness of the Sun would have damaged my eyes. 

Me showing a projected view from the binoculars onto my hand.  

 To keep people from trying to look through the eyepieces, I put a box with a hole for the binoculars to fit on and the opposite end was taped a piece of paper where the image is projected. 

Sun/Venus is projected through the box and onto the paper for safe viewing.

Another great view of the transit.  Tiny dot now farther from the edge.

There were hundreds of people who trekked out to the Maryland Science Center to see this last in a lifetime event.  The clouds even parted long enough for us to view.  I hope you got a chance to view some of it. 
Until next time, Meet Me Outdoors.