Community Corner
Venus Transit Wows Despite Clouds in Napa
Did you glimpse the transit of Venus Tuesday? Dozens of folks from Napa and nearby came out to view the rare celestial event at Napa Valley College, and we've got pictures. If you do too, please share them!
A cloudy, windy, busy Tuesday didn't keep a stream of curious Napans from making the trek to the Napa Valley College ballfields for a look at the transit of Venus, a twice-in-a-lifetime celestial event that won't occur again for more than 105 years.
Retired NVC astronomy professor John Charlesworth led a group of skywatchers whose high-powered telescopes were equipped with solar filters to allow safe viewing of Venus in its passage between Earth and the sun.
Fast-moving clouds often thickened to obscure the sun, but quickly blew past, lending a dramatic flair to the images seen through the telescope lenses.
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While viewing the event with homemade pinhole projectors was not easy, Charlesworth used a more sophisticated version to project an image of the tiny, dark disc of Venus crossing the great, bright circle of the sun's surface.
Other observers brought telescopes equipped with cameras as well as eyepieces, to capture the cosmic rarity.
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If you were able to do the same, we'd love to see your photographs! Please share them here, and tell us in the comments what it was like to observe the transit of Venus in Napa.
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