Gallery

Recalling the 2012 transit of Venus.  During the afternoon and evening of June 5, 2012, Venus passed in front of the Sun.  ASNH members viewed this transit from several locations in Connecticut, although clouds made the observing difficult.  Here are two images taken by Donald Straka on the grounds of Yale’s Leitner Observatiory in New Haven.  Don used an ordinary DSLR camera with a zoom lens (and a suitable Sun filter, of course!).  Even though he used no telescope, the images show not only Venus but several sunspots scattered over the Sun’s surface.  The lower image shows the clouds rolling in, putting a premature end to the show.

Transits of Venus are very rare; the next one will not occur until 2117.

Photos by Donald Straka using a Canon SX20 at 100 mm on a stationary tripod, through a homemade filter made from Baader solar film.

Springtime galaxies.  Spring is a good time for galaxy observing, with the Virgo galaxy cluster crossing the meridian during the evening hours.  Jim Mazur captured these two images of some prime targets.  The upper image shows Messier 104, the well-known Sombrero Galaxy.  The lower picture includes two large elliptical galaxies, Messier 86 (upper left) and Messier 84 (upper right), a large spiral galaxy, NGC 4388, and many smaller galaxies.   More details can be seen in these larger-format images of Messier 104 and Messier 84.

Messier 104, the Sombrero Galaxy

Messier 84 and 86 along with other galaxies. Photos taken by Jim Mazur with a 14-inch Meade telescope and an SBIG ST-8300M imager.