Joe S.

For a number of reasons, not the least of which was driving time, I decided to stay near home for the transit. I found that Mill Creek Park in Willingboro (where I sometimes go to see things in the west after sunset) also had a good northeast horizon from the opposite side of the park. The tree line was only 2 or 3 degrees high, so I figured I would only lose about 15 minutes vs. an ocean horizon at the shore.

I arrived about 4:50 am and started setting up, but it was already too bright to find Polaris for aligning the equatorial mount on my 5-inch refractor. Instead, I used a compass, which worked fine (once I found the sun, the only pointing adjustment was re-centering when I switched to a higher magnification). I also brought my 77 mm spotting scope. Around 5:15 am, I was joined by Al Meloni, who brought his 18-inch reflector (with a mask to stop it down and hold the solar filter film).

A reddish blotch of sun first appeared just above the trees at 5:46 am EDT, 15 minutes after local sunrise at 5:31 am. Even if the horizon had been perfectly flat, I probably wouldn't have seen the sun any sooner due to the early-morning haze (it was almost foggy as I was driving there and the equipment was picking up dew as I set up).

About 5 minutes later, the entire disk became visible, but still a deep orange color. I took a quick peek with 7x42 binoculars and it looked pretty much as expected, but nevertheless, the first sight of Venus' black disk on the orange sun was truly awesome and breathtakingly beautiful.

It wasn't until almost 6:15 am that I got a good telescopic view (each scope was equipped with a metallized glass filter in front of the objective). Initially, the haze made aiming-by-shadow difficult (the shadows were soft), and when I was able to locate the sun, the images were rather dim in both scopes. However, once the haze had diminished, the telescopic view was excellent. Venus was a crisp black disc against the sun. A couple of small sunspots near the middle of the sun were also visible (indistinct compared
to Venus, but not difficult to see).

The spotting scope had a zoom eyepiece attached, so magnification could be varied from 20 to 60x at will. Most of the time with the 5-inch, I used my 40 mm 2-inch eyepiece (29x) and had a very comfortable view of the whole disc of the sun. Towards third contact, I switched to my 13.8 mm eyepiece (83x) which provided an excellent close-up view (had there not been distractions, e.g., joggers stopping by for a look, I would have tried a couple of higher magnification eyepieces too).

Using the 5-inch at 83x to observe, and my GPS for the clock, I timed third contact at 7:05:50-55 am. As indicated by the range in the seconds column, there was some ambiguity when contact actually occurred, but I would not go so far as to call it a "black drop" effect. The average value was about 10 seconds earlier than the USNO-predicted topocentric time for this location (7:06:02.4 am).

Fourth contact was also tricky. The disc of Venus slowly shrunk until it was difficult to distinguish its vanishing scallop from the gently wavy edge of the sun (caused by seeing, which for the most part was pretty good). I timed it at 7:25:35-40 am, the average being about 14 seconds ahead of the USNO time of 7:25:51.6 seconds. (I make no scientific claims for these timings!)

Needless to say, it was an event not to be missed, and I have no regrets about getting up so early to see it.

Lane D.

I arrived at the Batsto Village observing field about 4:00am under the light of the last quarter moon. As I searched the sit for some sign of my fellow astronomers, Blake C. arrived and I got a call from Jerry L. telling me where they were. Blake and I found them on the western side (where else?) of the large field, just as morning twilight was becoming visable. Jim S. was already there along with Jerry. Blake and I pulled in beside them. They already had their scopes set up and were polar aligned. It was remarkably warm - in the mid-sixties and very damp with fog beginning to form overhead - typical of south Jersey. There were also some cirrus in the northeast but it was difficult to tell how thick they were.

I said my hellos and, as I began to set up my scope I also realized the twilight was brightening quickly. Suddenly, it was a race to finish setting up my mount and polar aligning before I lost Polaris in the gathering light. I made it - just barely. Only later did I realize that polar alignment wasn't really necessary for this event - the force of habit I guess.

The moon was nice and the viewing detailed enough for a promise of good seeing. Whippoorwills were all around us and a woodpecker was hammering nearby.

As the fog started dropping, the Sun cleared the far trees just before 6:00am and we all saw Venus about the same time. It was unexpectedly large compared to the Mercury transits we've seen. The seeing was very good and we had granulation across the disk when the sun was only 5 degrees up. Several small sunspots were in the center of the disk - otherwise it was bald. About the time Jerry and I started shooting a plane crossed the disk of the Sun but we both missed it by a second or two. I got one shot with the contrail.

I was using a Baader solar filter as did Jerry. Jim and Blake also had a-alpha filters. I began shooting afocally with my Cannon G2 and Jerry was shooting with a high-end Nikon. I continued a cycle of imaging and looking but as Venus neared third contact I keep shooting and missed my chance to see the teardrop!

When Venus had disappeared in my white-light filter, it was still visible in Jim's h-alpha because he was seeing more of the Sun's atmosphere. The morning was warming quickly as I packed up, said my goodbyes and drove on to work for the day. My co-workers were excited about my photos and everyone stopped by to see them.

It is a little difficult for me to relate to the long timeline cycle we had just witnessed. The next Venus transit is in 2012 and I hope I'm here to see it and the weather is as good. Below are a few of my better images.

A grand line of AP's. Blake's scope is just out of the picture.		Early morning fog across the field, which didn't seem to interfere with the views.
Venus about 6:00am.EDT		Venus again about 6:50am EDT