Transit of Venus Across the Sun
2004 June 8th 1st and 2nd contact
Altitude 29°-33°

Kavan Ratnatunga, Luxor, Egypt

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The Sun being at a low 30° altitude in Luxor Egypt around the start of the transit the black drop effect is visible in this sequence of images.

Images taken with the CMU 3.5 inch Questa Telescope with Full solar Filter using a TOPCON SLR Film camera attached to Prime focus behind primary mirror. One millisecond exposures on Kodak 35mm 100 ASA negative film scanned at about 1000 dpi and images displayed on webpage at 400%. Time of Exposure not recorded and not equally spaced. There is a large time gap just after 2nd contact when I refocused and watched through the eyepiece rather than camera. Seems to have not got a good focus on returning to photography. Although I like taking photographs of these events, I don't compromise watching it by eye to do so.

The Film was developed in Egypt and the roll of negatives was scanned in USA. There are a few small scratches on some of the frames.

It is a pity I took these shots without the Barlow. I would have needed to sacrifice maybe missing first contact and also watching black drop effect through eyepiece to photograph using Eyepiece mount and Barlow of the Questa.

See also main observational report and images taken close to end of Transit between 3rd and 4th contact. These were taken with the Barlow through the eyepiece mount.