Transit of Venus: Gallery

If you missed third contact, or want to see it again, we've got a quicktime movie of the Stardate coverage.

If you don't have Quicktime you download quicktime for free. The video is 7.5 MB, and should take roughly 23 minutes to download with a 56k modem connection.

Here are some more visual records of the day:

Used with permission

The TRACE satellite sends back an image from space as Venus starts its journey across the sun.

You can see movies taken by the TRACE satellite:
First movie
Second movie
Third movie
Obviously, these movies are quite large files and may take some time to download.

TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal Explorer) is a mission of the Stanford-Lockheed Institute for Space Research, and part of the NASA Small Explorer program.

Used with permission
Its journey nearly completed, Venus reaches the far side of the sun. Image: Adrian Catterall

Used with permission
Viewer Robert Hesketh took this photo in Bradford, West Yorkshire

Used with permission
Thanks to Paul Chapman for this shot. He explains: "It just goes to show you don't have to be a genius with a camera as I got this shot of Venus in transit across the sun this morning. The picture was taken with a Hewlett Packard 945 using all of it's 8x optical zoom. Set to automatic exposure with the use of a camera stand and an appropriate filter, I clicked away. The photograph was taken in my back garden in Hornchurch Essex at 07.30am, this morning 08.06.04."

Used with permission
This is the apparatus used by viewer John Jacka to capture the next two shots of the transit:
Used with permission
Used with permission

Used with permission
And thanks to Tony Evans for this - he says this "photo is combination of 5 frames from video taken with Toucam Pro webcam attached to a Meade LX200."

Used with permission
The picture above shows how Darren Souter obtained the following ethereal images of the Transit. Darren, in Hull, used a hand-held Minolta aimed at a sheet of white paper onto which he projected the image from a four inch reflecting telescope:
Used with permission
Used with permission
Used with permission

Many thousands of astronomers were observing, from right across the globe. Some of those joining in on our forum provided links to their own images taken during the day. And you can find many more images and movies on these other websites:

The Open University and the BBC are not responsible for the content of external websites.
transit-of-venus.org.uk - University of Central Lancashire's Official Site
vt-2004.org - ESO's Transit of Venus portal
NASA-Goddard - SOHO images
TRACE - A view from a space telescope
The Exploratorium - offering a live webcast
Mira Public Observatory - offering the transit from a Belgian perspective
V2K4 - observed the transit from India
Armagh Observatory - closer to home, this site has images from Ireland
Morden Observatory - Adrian Catterall's images from Greenwich
If you were intrigued by the footage Michael showed Lucie of the International Space Station transiting the Sun, you might be interested in John Locker's website, which manages a 'double whammy' of Space Station and Venus on the same day