Transits of Venus across the face of the Sun occur in pairs separated by 8 years, and then it is more than 100 years before the next pair. This transit in 2004 occurred mostly during the night for the eastern US, but here in Connecticut we were able see the end of it just after sunrise.

This image shows the silhoutte of Venus just about touching the rim of the Sun before it exits. Venus looks small compared to the Sun, but it is actually smaller than it appears because it is closer to us. If it were at the same distance of the Sun it would be only about half as big as seen here.

For the next transit of Venus in 2012, our part of Connecticut had thick clouds so we didn't see a thing, but viewers in other parts of Connecticut did get to see it. For events like this, cloud cover is a real wild card.

Image details: Exposure of 1/27 second taken with a Nikon E5000 camera at f/4.2, ISO 400, through 20x100 binoculars with a white-light solar filter.

June 8, 2004