Me an' Venus

Ken Lunders

Not willing to wait until 2117 to check out Venus' transit across the Sun, we headed down to Orion Telescope. I heard there would be some telescopes set up in the parking lot for a few hours. Many other people heard the same thing and the small strip mall parking lot was jammed.

After squeezing into a parking spot at the end of the lot farthest from the setup we walked over to Orion. We found three telescopes were set up and a line of about 20 or so people of all kinds were waiting for a peep through each. The first two telescopes were outfitted with different filters, giving an orangish cast to one view and a greenish cast to the other. Both clear and sharp as you could want. The third scope had an optical sensor inserted with the output displayed on a laptop computer. The computer was on a small table with some decent shading around it so the screen was relatively easy to see. The screen was also very shiny. Like a mirror.

I think this is as close to Venus as I'll ever get. Or want to. No AC, and the outside temp is pretty high.

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