For information about extremely rare Venus Transit check out the first paragraphs of both the May 2012 and June 2012 Portage County Gazette articles I wrote about the event.  You may also wish to read this brief list of Venus facts that I recall.  Enjoy the videos below of one of the greatest Astronomical events of our century.

The first video taken that evening.  Mr. Bill Jenkins holding camera and myself narrating.  About 5:27 pm.

We are on the corner of Taft & Birch Streets SW of Plover Wisconsin.  Three potato fields and one corner is a pasture with dairy cows.  We are on the NW corner with the wind mill electric generator.

2nd video.  We are using Dr. Andy Braun's 30 cm eyepiece to project onto a white sheet of construction paper, clipped to a clipboard, and attached to two ring stand rods with one ring stand base.

On this short video #5 you can see how the rotation of the Earth causes the Sun to move from the upper right to the lower left in a few minutes.  Thus we need to keep moving the telescope to adjust the image on the screen.

3rd video.  We are using a 12 inch reflecting telescope on a Dobson mount (like a lazy Susan in a kitchen).

One can hear the Meadow Lark and other birds singing for the Venus Transit in Video #6 below.

#7 Capt. Jenkins informing me of Boy Scout Leader Meeting at SPASH tonight.

Still 5:39 pm as I offer to have Capt. Jenkins take a handful of solar glasses with him back to SPASH to let the Boy Scout Leaders view Venus Transit on the Sun directly.  He also took the filtered 12 inch reflector as we still had three telescopes left to view the transit with.

#8 Adjusting telescope

At 5:41 pm you catch Venus at the very end of the video.  This shows that we could not see what we were recording in the window of the camera due to it being to bright out.

#9  I mention it is 5:39 pm

Capt. Jenkins shows me that zooming out on the new camera and back in helps me locate what I am looking at.