Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Venus Transit Observation Plan

Observation Plan:

1st contact: 0611
2nd contact: 0629
3rd contact: 1231
4th contact: 1249

1. due to the high potential of poor weather during the 1st and 2nd contacts, I will skip that.  Also, if I were to do high power imaging, it could be hard to point at exactly the right point given my manual mount.

2. I will go to a nearby location to capture the rest of the transit until the 3rd and 4th contact, and since the dark shadow of Venus will be already in the view, it would be easy to point at exactly the right point even with a manual mount

3. I should be there before 9:00

Equipments:

1. Baader 3.8 + CaK + Ranger + Lu070M with netbook: this will only be used when it was close to 3rd and 4th contact, I will record that for half an hour... like from 1225 to 1255, a 2x barlows should be used.

2. Canon 450D + Canon 100-400mm + Thousand Oaks: this will be used all the time, maybe used with a time lapse cable at 5 minutes interval

Things to note:

1. Fully charged netbook
2. Fully charged batteries
3. All sorts of cables, in particular for the Lumenera, power, etc
4. Mark-X tracking mount with a ball head and slow motion control
5. Umbrella + water

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