Animation 23:27UT to 0:28UT

This animation of the June 5-6 transit of Venus consists of 35 frames out of 230 from the Utah Dept. of Transportation Tie Fork Rest Area on U.S. Highway 6 near Tucker, Utah, North 39.932907 Lat., West -111.161161 Long, and the animating covers about 1 hour of the transit between 2012-06-4 23:26:59UT and 2012-06-05 00:28:27. 1100mm f/l 4.25in refractor, glass solar filter, Canon XSi camera at prime focus, 1/80th sec. exposures at 400 ASA. C5 mount. In the images, solar altitude ranges from approx. 35 deg to 25 degs above the horizon. Manual guiding, Photoshop manual image registration and post-processing. Raw images are color, but black and white was chosen for display here, because it shows more detail.

These images were taken under adverse conditions. A weather front with 75 mph winds went through Utah during the day of the eclipse. I found a hole at the clearing, trailing edge of the storm system. Although skies were clear with dust haze, winds remained between 15 mph gusting to 30 mph. I set up in the lee of a building, and that provided some wind protection. Imaging ended as the Sun was obstructed by the wind-protective building. Imaging in the wind in order to follow Venus and the Sun down to the horizon was not practical.

After during and after imaging, 11 public members were assisted in viewing the transit.

(Photoshop keeps generating an out-of-order index error for one the images in the animation. I will repost a corrected version within two days. - Kurt 6-6-2012.)