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Against all the odds, we have been blessed with blue skies, here near
Oxford, UK, for the transit of Venus.

I tried observing the Sun just with one-eye-power, using a dark-blue filter
from an old plastic sextant, but I could not pick out the spot of Venus
that way. Probably, it's loss of acuity in my old eye, rather than any
defect in the filter.

Next, I got out a cheap 8x30 prismatic monocular, which I had pushed
through a hole in a dark piece of card to enlarge its shadow. Just
hand-held, and focussed on another piece of card about 4 feet away; this
showed up the transiting planet very clearly.

Here, we are about 50 miles from Heathrow, so there's much air traffic to
our East, some converging on the Heathrow honeypot, others flying South to
avoid Heathrow. Occasionally a vapour trail would partially obscure the Sun
while it was low in the sky. Now the Sun is much higher, with the transit
more than halfway through, and there are no vapour-trail wisps across its
face.

While I was looking at the Sun's projected image, an aircraft passed right
across the Sun's disc! And a couple of rooks, from our local rookery, have
passed through the beam. Nothing more eventful than that to report,
however.

George.

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contact George Huxtable by email at george@huxtable.u-net.com, by phone at
01865 820222 (from outside UK, +44 1865 820222), or by mail at 1 Sandy
Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
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