The Transit of Venus

The Transit of Venus on June  8th. 2004 

In 2004, I took these two photographs of the transit of Venus using a one-shot compact digital camera attached to my old ETX 90RA telescope with a white light filter and a 12mm eyepiece (afocal method). It was a wonderful sunny day with just a little wispy high level cloud. The next transit will be visible from England as the sun rises on the morning of June 6th. 2012. Weather permitting, I hope to capture this event as there will not be further occurrences of this fascinating astronomical phenomenon until December 2117 and December 2125. Unless there is an unprecedented improvement in medical sciences, I'm unlikely to be in any fit state to photograph the next two transits.

Venus transiting the face of the Sun
(ie. you can see the silhouette of the planet Venus which
appears black against the bright surface of the Sun)
with an Image of Earth added to provide scale

Evidence of light being diffracted by the Venusian atmosphere

WARNING: Under no circumstances should anyone use binoculars or a telescope or a camera view finder to look at the sun as this will result in severe damage to the eyes and probable blindness. Just staring at the sun with or without sunglasses can cause damage to your eyes. If you wish to observe this event contact your local amateur astronomy group or club who will be more than happy to advise on how to do this safely.

More details can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus,_2012