Great Basin School of Photography

The planet Venus passes silhouetted across the face of the sun, as the sun sets behind trees in the Sierra Nevada.  For the next planetary transit across the sun, there will be a Mercury transit on May 9, 2016.

These photos were captured during the Venus transit event on June 5, 2012.  I ran around all afternoon placing the sun behind earth-bound objects, since the planet Venus wouldn’t pass in front of the sun again for another 105 years!  I figured that a ton of people would have nice telescopic views of Venus and the sun, but it’s not all that often that we can catch Venus as a planet along with earth-bound objects and the sun, all in one photo.

I used a Canon 5D Mark III DSLR with a Canon EF 70-300 mm f/4 IS L lens and a Canon 2X Teleconverter III to create an effective focal length of 400mm.  Special solar filter material is necessary to reduce radiation and protect your camera’s sensor.  There was still enough sunlight passing through the filter to enable an exposure of 1/2000 second at f/32 (ISO 200)!

This article on timeanddate.com can tell you when the May 9 Mercury transit will occur.  Cross reference those UTC and local times with the sunrise and sunset times in your location to know the approximate times when the transit may be visible above the horizon.  The article also provides links to information on proper eye protection.  Don’t fry your retinas looking at the sun!

“After centuries of trying, only photographic technology could measure the ‘Transit of Venus’ and tell us our position in the solar system.” – +Royal Observatory Greenwich

Here are more of my astrophotography images in an album on Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreysullivan/albums/72157631958820364

#astronomy   #astrophotography   #astronomyimages

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