“The lines were a lot longer than I expected,” said Greg Townsend, “as an educator, I am really glad to see this.” People stood in lines and asked questions as our nearest planet moved across the disc of the sun.
There were many ways to see the event, from looking directly using filtered glasses, through lower-end telescopes projecting the sun on paper, and up to high-end telescopes connected to computers to display the images on screen.
After some false starts, and with a little ingenuity I was able to fashion a filter which worked for my telephoto lens. While not as detailed as some of the telescope views, you can clearly see Venus, the black dot at around the one-o’clock position, a couple of huge sun spots around the middle, and some clouds towards the bottom.
Here is a slideshow of some of the sights of the afternoon.
For more information about future events hosted by our local Astronomy Club, check out their page at http://www.astroasheville.org
And if you missed this, and are oh, under 10 or so.. there is a chance you might make the next one on December 11, 2117.
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