News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Sisters residents view transit of Venus

Several Sisters residents glimpsed a rare astronomical event last Tuesday, June 5. Local optical engineer Forrest Babcock, joined by wife Janet Zuelke and several friends, set up a mini observatory on the shores of Shasta Lake and got a look at this year's transit of Venus, an event that won't happen again until the year 2117.

The group was on a boating vacation, and Babcock brought along a spotting scope, tripod and makeshift observing screen just for the occasion. Sisters photographer Lynn Woodward was along and took the accompanying photos.

"It was a kick to have Forrest there presenting the event to us," said Woodward, "to be in awe of his magnitude of expertise and share his ants-in-the-pants enthusiasm."

"It was nip-and-tuck there for a while," said Pete Rathbun, another member of the group. "As the 3 p.m. start of the transit approached, there were lots of clouds and a rain-shower or two. We got lucky though; there were plenty of chances over the two-hour event for everyone to get a look."

According to Babcock, "The optics used was a Leupold 25-power spotting scope. The image of the sun was produced by projecting the sun out of the eyepiece of the scope onto a white sheet of paper bonded to the bottom of one of Janet's flower pots. This was done by design to include ... Janet's [botanical interests] and my astronomical interests into one event. ... The challenge was keeping a shadow over the projected image so we could produce a good image of the sun and transit without overexposure of leaked-in sunlight coming from around the spotting scope. This was a very simple setup ... "

A transit occurs when an astronomical body (in this case Venus) passes precisely between Earth and the sun. Transits of Venus come in pairs, with each transit eight years apart, and each pair of transits 112 years apart. The first of this pair happened on June 8, 2004, and the pair before that took place in 1874/1882.

In Sisters, members of the Sisters Astronomy Club brought their telescopes to the high school parking lot to show passersby the sight of the planet Venus passing in front of the sun.

The weather turned out to be better than was forecasted just a day earlier. Although clouds occasionally hid the sun from view, there were long periods when the transit was clearly visible.

Astronomy club members John Huntsberger, Thomas Jeffrey and Ron Thorkildson brought their telescopes, and Jim Hammond had a pair of binoculars fitted with solar filters that folks used to witness the celestial event. Besides the silhouette of Venus, observers were also able to glimpse several clusters of sunspots. Jeffrey estimated that up to 40 people took advantage of the opportunity to see the unusual spectacle.

 

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