Diversion

June 5

Totally off topic, but on the weekend KID1 and I made an adapter to convert an old solar filter I had for a four inch telescope to fit on my current ten inch. It was based on the 'make your own solar filter' web site of the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers, but instead of the sheet of solar filter I had a whole cartridge. It is essentially filter material surrounded by a plastic base (in effect a replacement for the lens cap on the four inch). So we made a heavy cardboard and duct-tape adapter that work perfectly on the ten inch.

Then Tuesday was the Transit of Venus, and here are a couple of pictures we got of it. They're not very sharp, but you get the idea. First picture is just around second contact, but it is not clear enough to show the 'black drop' effect (Venus at around 5 o'clock). Second picture is maybe 30 minutes later (Venus at 6 o'clock).

Note for the previous transit in 2004, I used this same solar filter taped to a box, with binoculars taped to the other side. It was quite portable, but kind of unsteady, and certainly wouldn't have worked for pictures.