2004 Transit of Venus

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Yes, most entertaining

Was that you at 23:45?

No, that's Looney Lady with her cup of questionable content.

I'm the guy at 23:37. And at 24:18 I'm holding my fist out showing my brother, Brad, how to measure the sky with your hand. it's cheaper than a sextant.....

This whole deal reminds me of when my astronomy club spent the evening at a local community college showing Jupiter the night of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy9 collision with Jupiter. We'd studied up on the event and didn't want to oversell what people were looking at, so we spent the night saying "See that black spot there? Looks like a moon shadow, but that's exactly what an impact site is expected to look like. The real ones are expected to be on the back side where we can't see them."

Woke up the next morning and found that the impact site was visible and yep, we'd spent the night showing an impact site to the public and telling them it was the shadow of one of Jupiter's moons. We are trained experts. Don't try this stuff at home, folks...

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

I'm the guy at 23:37. And at 24:18 I'm holding my fist out showing my brother, Brad, how to measure the sky with your hand. it's cheaper than a sextant.....

That's a shame, I'd thought of a couple of quips about those skinny white legs that were on view