Date/Time: June 5, 2012 3PM - 9PM PDT

Location: My home, Victoria, BC, Canada

A Transit of Venus is a very rare celestial event, and this one was the last opportunity for me to observe this apparition in my lifetime. The weather in Victoria cooperated, and I successfully observed and imaged this amazing alignment of the Sun, Venus and Earth.

Not only did I photograph this event, I also visually observed using my Celestron 9x63 Ultima binoculars fitted with Thousand Oaks black polymer solar filters.

I observed virtually the whole event, except the last few minutes or so when the Sun set just before the event finished.


This event is probably the most-photographed and well-covered astronomical event in my lifetime, so I decided to make a composite photograph which captured what I observed today. What you see is a composite of six photos taken at strategic times during the day.

Equipment: Canon EOS 7D dSLR, Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L telephoto lens operating at f/6.3, Kendrick white light Baader Solar Filter, mounted on a Manfrotto 055 tripod, no tracking

Processing: Photoshop Elements 10 - created a composite, converted to 8 bit version of image.

My observing log: http://tinyurl.com/6pbql45