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June 8, 2004 Tenth floor of the AUM Library Tower Montgomery AL Considering the hour of the day and that it fell in the middle of a
work week for most of us, little serious thought (and no planning) had
been put into organizing a group meeting for this historic event.
That was before we were contacted by Mr. Joe Albree of the Department
of Mathematics at Auburn University at Montgomery. Joe teaches the
History of Mathematics course at AUM and saw this as on opportunity to
have his class experience first-hand, the kind of event that was used to
determine the Astronomical Unit – the distance from the Sun to Earth that
they had studied. Joe called to ask us if we would be interested
in sharing our solar filtered telescopes with his math class. Just like
Blanche Dubois, we’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.
We jumped at the opportunity. Here's Joe's background on the event
and its history:
Joe visited with us at our May meeting and discussed his plans for viewing the transit. Special emphasis was placed on the safety aspects of observing the Sun by using only a safe solar filter or projection method be used to observe this rare event. On the day of the event, I arrived at AUM at 4:30AM. Several people were already set up in the room on the tenth floor of the AUM Library Tower that Joe had selected. Originally, Joe had sought the availability of the roof of the AUM Library Tower, but learned that WSFA’s Weather Radar was putting out dangerous levels of RF energy up there. Plan “B” was the The East Room -- a large conference room located on the tenth floor. Ray Kunert visited the room and reported, as Joe told us at the May meeting, that although the windows in the room are recessed, viewing to the northeast will be good. The windows have permanent blinds (adjustable tilt, but not “raisable”) within the double panes, but they posed no problem with the Sun’s image when focused at infinity. This minor problem was more than offset by being able to enjoy the event in the comfort of air conditioning! Venus would be nearing the end of her transit at sunrise in Montgomery on June 8, 2004 at 05:33. The Sun rose at 62 degrees azimuth into a bank of clouds on our otherwise unobstructed northeastern horizon, and spoiled the first several minutes of the event. Venus then teased us like and exotic dancer, with sneak peeks between the clouds until about 15 minutes before she exited, stage right. The atmosphere in the room where we were gathered was one of quiet ecstasy during the transit. Everyone had a good view at one time or another as we took turns at the telescopes. At the end, we gave her a round of applause and a curtain call , but there was no encore -- not for another 8 years anyway. It was a truly memorable experience. Ray Kunert observed chromatic aberration (red tinge on one side of the image – blue on the other side) above and below Venus with his 10-inch Meade SCT. We mused over why this might be as the phenomenon had never been seen in this instrument before. Subsequently, we read numerous reports of this on astronomy mail lists. The consensus seemed to be that it was atmospheric chromatic aberration and that it was more pronounced when seen using larger apertures. Joe Albree: Thanks to all of you in the Auburn Astronomical Society for making last Tuesday really special. I know that the students and faculty who we did have there benefited from having all of you there also. With the death of President Reagan last week, I believe the coverage that the Transit would have gotten was probably scaled back in most newspapers and TV stations. But, how many events from that day 122 years ago (even those that made the front pages of all the newspapers) are still remembered? Without meaning any disrespect to Mr. Reagan or expressing any political partisanship, in the long view of history, I think we arguably had an event that was at least as newsworthy. We are looking forward to Frank Williams' photos also, and I hope to post some of them on our bulletin board. I'm confident that he would welcome publication of some of them in "Astrofiles." I've forwarded your note to him. Joe Albree
Thanks to all who pitched in. Attending were: Paul
Williamson, Susanna Fillingham, Casey Curran, Mark McGregor, Robert West
and grandson Tom Mooneyham, Rhon & Joyce Jenkins, Rod Havens, Robert
Rock, John Clifton, Russell Whigham, Ray Kunert, Mike Holley, Taylor Jernigan,
Ricky Woods - Math Club President, Randy Russell – AUM Astronomy Professor,
Jack and Gina Franz & family. And finally, special thanks to
Joe Albree – Math Professor and event organizer, for making this
happen.
Others observed the event from various locations in our area: Gail Smitherman: I got to see a smidge of the end of the Venus transit through the tree limbs [in Selma]. Enough to say I saw it!!!! Wayne Padgett: I will be in Auburn Tuesday morning, visiting
my parents (Tom and Mary Lou Padgett). I am considering trying to
visit Cliff Hill's farm to view the transit. If you hear of a location
closer to town that others will use, I'd love to hear about it. I'll
be able to check my email while traveling, so please let me know.
Thanks.
[When was asked to tell us about himself, Wayne replied:] I grew up and got my B.E.E in Auburn, and my parents are still there (here, at the moment). My father, Tom Padgett is a former director of the the Co-op Program, and big into ballroom dancing. Rhon Jenkins knows them from dance class, and I know he has a telescope. I have a very small telescope, but I've been working to get the kids into astronomy so I can get a bigger one. :) I built a homemade little solar projector so I can do sunspot watching with the kids during the day - the web page is the first hit on Google for 'cheap solar projector'. I haven't finished putting up my best images from it (not very good) or the math to figure the length of the tube from the lens and screen spacings. I guess I'll try to find Hill's farm in the morning (maybe I'll run out there today to see if I can find it in daylight first). Later, Wayne reported: My father and I went out to the farm, and we saw Mr. Hill, who came out to chat for a minute. There were low clouds, so the sun wasn't visible until about 6 am, but when it came up over the clouds, it was still before 3rd contact. My homemade scope worked well, and I got some pictures and video of the transit on it. Neither device was easy to focus on the projected image, so all my records are a bit blurry compared to what I saw, but the venus shadow is clearly visible (just not sharp-edged). I will put up some of the photos on the cheap solar projector page soon. I was disappointed nobody else showed up, but I guess they found easier places to see the sunrise from. Mr. Hill came back by as we packed up and looked at the video I took on the camcorder. So, thanks for having a nice place to go and look from. Jim McLaughlin: I was in Gulf Shores 6/8 and a bank of
clouds on the eastern horizon blocked the sun til about 6AM, at which point
I estimate Venus was within 2 diameters of egress. Saw first contact with
the limb at egress with a slight "teardrop" effect and last contact but
views were interrupted by scattered clouds, but it was worthwhile seeing
planetary orbital motion in real time.
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