Desktop astronomy

[ellarien]

It's pitch black and pouring with rain outside, but I'm watching Venus march across the face of the Sun.

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

So. Cool. Wow.

[ellarien]

Thank you! It was fun -- though I may regret it when I have to get up for the 6.50 train tomorrow. The whole thing happened when I should have been in bed; I slept for a couple of hours in the middle, then got up to watch the end, then went back to bed for another four hours.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

The moment anyone announces that an interesting astronomical phenomenon is about to happen, the sky clouds over here and the rain begins. :(

I'm just resigned to watching these things on TV or on the computer.

[ellarien]

I know! It was thick cloud here at sunrise (and anyway the sun would have been somewhere behind the hill). I did once get to watch a Mercury transit -- the 1999 one, which was only just a transit at all -- in the image from a giant solar telescope at Kitt Peak, projected on a table.