Photographing the Transit of Venus

[Fighting_falcon_51]

Hello guys,

In case you didn't know the Transit of Venus will take place on June 5th. (http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2012/05/19/nasa-announces-venus-transit-of-the-sun-to-take-place-june-5th)

During the transit I will be on top of a 4 story building and I am hoping to photograph it, but I don't even know where to start.

First I assume I'd use my 300mm lens paired with my T2i body and my sturdy tripod, I also assume I will have to pick up some type of solar filter to prevent damage to my eyes and camera sensor.

But now this is where I'm stumped:

Will 300mm be enough? Is it even worth lugging all my gear?
Will my camera be safe with the filter on? I don't feel like frying my sensor and pointing the camera directly in the sun scares me.
Which settings would be preferable?
Thanks,
Ken

[Joe]

Hello Ken,
Attached is an image taken with my 7D using the 100-400, other than being resized to 1024, it is completely untouched:

http://joeogden.net/Astro/IMG_9585%201024.JPG

This was taken at ISO100, F 5.6 at 1/800 sec. The transit itself will last a little while, unfortunately here on the East Coast, we will not see it in it's entirety. I have a 77mm Thousand Oaks Solar filter attached to the front of my lens. You have to be extremely careful when imaging the sun, it only takes a fraction of a second to do irreversible harm to your eyes and can damage your equipment. Since the transit is due to occur in the late evening as the sun is setting, you may be able to get away with an ND filter or something similar if you don't already own a true solar filter, as I've taken sunset images in the past without anything other than A UV filter. They are about $60.00, depending upon the size that you need, and you can order them online, however, they may be hard to come by this late in the game.

[Joe]

Here is a link to their website:
http://www.thousandoaksoptical.com/

Unfortunately, they are not accepting new orders with delivery prior to the eclipse. You can try Ebay or camera concepts out in Patchogue, they may have them in stock or have the film for you to create your own filter.


I was very hesitant the first time that I shot the sun, actually the image posted above was one of the few shots that I took the day the filter arrived. I held the filter up to my eye and after seeing it for the first time, I then felt comfortable and showed several others. Other than the sun, everything else appears as it does in the image, completely black, you can't see a thing!

[Fighting_falcon_51]

Wow, thank you for all the information.

I'm definitely going to try to hunt down that filter.

Edit: Wow, after doing some googling they are either all sold out or their prices are jacked. I'll try Camera Concepts.

If worse comes to worse do you think it will be safe shooting with an ND filter?

[Joe]

Here's the same image, cropped and sharpened slightly:
http://joeogden.net/Astro/IMG_9585b%201024.JPG

If you look carefully, you can see some sun spots.

[Joe]

Wow, thank you for all the information.

I'm definitely going to try to hunt down that filter.



You are very welcome, glad to help.

[Joe]

Edit: Wow, after doing some googling they are either all sold out or their prices are jacked. I'll try Camera Concepts.

If worse comes to worse do you think it will be safe shooting with an ND filter?


Here is a link to someone selling 2/3 rds of a sheet of solar film if you want to try to make your own:

http://www.cloudynights.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=60034&sort=&cat=24&page=1

I am not 100% sure about the ND filter, I wouldn't use it during the day, however, since the transit is supposed to start in the evening, it might be safe as the sun starts to set. There are different levels of ND filters, I would use one of the darker ones. If going this route, please be careful, maybe take a few quick exposures of 1/800 or faster and see if they are blown out. I have taken images of the sun accidentally at air shows while tracking planes without realizing it, while the image was naturally blown out, it didn't seem to affect the camera or my eyes.


A #14 welders glass will also safely work.

[Fighting_falcon_51]

Well since the filters and mylar are hard to come by I decided to do a DIY with some floppy disk magnetic tape...

I know it doesn't block out as much light as a typical solar filter but I'm thinking this may do the trick. So what do you think? Does it look like it does the trick? Is this a horrible idea?

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8143/7297573856_8c7e501517_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kennethpagliughi/7297573856/)
IMG_4994 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kennethpagliughi/7297573856/) by Kenneth Pagliughi (http://www.flickr.com/people/kennethpagliughi/), on Flickr

Ugly little thing:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7213/7297573614_13497b9919_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kennethpagliughi/7297573614/)
IMG_5015 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kennethpagliughi/7297573614/) by Kenneth Pagliughi (http://www.flickr.com/people/kennethpagliughi/), on Flickr

[Derf]

Ken, welding supply stores will have welders glass for the safety shield or or face guard. Should be like $5 or so. You can use this to make a really cheap yet very effective 9-16 stop nd filter. You will have to shoot in raw because unlike an expensive ND filter, it will give you a greenish image.


If the sun is low enough, f22 at 1/8000 of a sec as the sun is setting will probably give you a great result. Looking forward to this

[Joe]

Hello Ken,
Your image doesn't look that bad, although the close up of the filter appears to have a slit in it. You have to be careful that the opening doesn't become larger as to not introduce too much light and become a concern. You can try the welders glass like Fred mentioned above, they work fine. I bought two pieces from my local hardware store so that others may look as well. While they recommend a #14 or darker, these were #12's as that was the darkest that they had in stock. Since I am friends with the the owners, they had allowed me to take one outside to give it a test and the #12 worked out fine. It is a little brighter than my solar filter, however, it would probably take several months of staring through them to cause any damage. They were only a few dollars each, they only had the two though. So you can try your local hardware store if a welding supply place isn't local to you. There's also a chance that Lowes or Home Depot may carry them, Sears lists them online so that may be another option if all else fails. The transit is supposed to last for seven hours, unfortunately the sun will set here long before that time.

[Joe]

Also Ken,
If the image appears too bright, you can up your shutter speed to keep it under control. The exif data from your image above is blocked, so I don't know what you shot it at.

[Fighting_falcon_51]

Thanks for the replies!

I did some research on the welders glass and it seems much more effective than my hackjob floppy disk filter. I will I have to see if I can hunt some glass down and then I will probably do a DIY similar to this: http://www.diyphotography.net/use-welding-glass-as-10-stops-nd-filter

As far as timing goes, from what I was told by 6:07pm we should start to see Venus on the edge of the the sun and by sunset it should be near half way across.

As far as settings I was at less than ideal settings for the test shot and ill will have to adjust them properly:

AV Mode
300mm
f/45
1/200 sec
ISO 100
-5 steps

[Mateo]

I shot the 2004 (2005?) Transit with some halfway decent results. Equipment was an Elan IIe with the non-IS, non-L Canon 75-300. Don't remember what film I used, but I was running a lot of Fuji Reala at the time, so that's a good bet. For protection, I used a telescope solar filter, which I happen to have. The filter was obviously much larger than the lens, so I just held it flush against the front of the lens. The camera was on a tripod and I used a remote to fire the shutter. I had the camera compute the exposure, and I don't remember the settings. The pictures came out OK, but the filter is mirrored on both sides and on a few of the shots, the filter mirrored back against something and I got either a double image or the solar disc turned out blue! I would assume it's a tiny refraction caused by not having the filter exactly perpendicular to the focal plane. I used the same method to shoot a partial solar eclipse in 1998, or so, but for that one I used a Minolta SRT-102 with a straight Vivitar 500mm lens.

One thing to beware of - it's not unheard of for solar filters to crack if they're pointing at the sun for too long, since they absorb a lot of energy. Monitor the temperature of your filter, and if you're resetting between shots or are not actively shooting, turn your rig away from the sun. Have fun - this is the last time any of us will see this event!

[Joe]

Here's an article that was emailed to me:http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog/How-to-Photograph-the-Solar-Eclipse-and-the-Transit-of-Venus-149902015.html

[Fighting_falcon_51]

I'm out with my camera and all I see are clouds clouds clouds... dammit steve

[Joe]

The clouds were extremely frustrating, but honestly expected as we always seem to have bad weather whenever something rare occurs! I did manage to snap a few shots when the sun passed through a small gap in the clouds. I shot these from the Airpower museums parking lot since it sits higher than my yard.

This shot was taken using a Kenko 2x teleconverter:
http://joeogden.net/Astro/IMG_9979b 1024.JPG

After a quick review when the sun went behind a cloud, it didn't seem very clear or sharp, so I removed it and shot with just the 100-400:

http://joeogden.net/Astro/IMG_0002b 1024.JPG

http://joeogden.net/Astro/IMG_0003b 1024.JPG

http://joeogden.net/Astro/IMG_0004b 1024.JPG

While I didn't get any great shots without some piece of cloud in the image, I was so happy that I at least had a window of a few seconds to at least see and photograph the transit, since I will be 148 years old the next time that it occurs. Luckily, Mercury transits the sun every few years, May of 2016 will be the next transit by Mercury.

[eric8669]

very cool!

[moose135]

Cool stuff, Joe!

[gonzalu]

Excellent results, Joe... better than mine (which was ZERO) :smile:

[PhilDernerJr]

Someone managed this today...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7075/7158443387_1f3fb3077a.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/80093146@N02/7158443387/)
Venus Transit (http://www.flickr.com/photos/80093146@N02/7158443387/) by melbatoasty1984 (http://www.flickr.com/people/80093146@N02/), on Flickr

[TJK]

Nicely done, Joe!

[Joe]

Thanks for the compliments guys. Phil, that is a great, once in a lifetime image! I'm still trying to capture a plane in front of the moon, haven't even thought of capturing one in front of the sun, let alone during the transit, although I'm sure it was pure luck that the plane passed in front of the sun at that time. I know that it wasn't yours, but thumbs up for whomever it was.

[sporky]

At 17:00 CDT, ventured out to start photographing the 2012 Transit of Venus from parking lot of work, only to find that clouds were moving in and blocking out the sun. After quickly finishing work and getting out of there, I was able to get home and gather up my girlfriend for a trip to the south where the clouds had not quite invaded. Here is the best of my shots.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7243/7346875950_52b5c7373e_b.jpg

-Tad Carlson

[sporky]

Someone managed this today...
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7075/7158443387_1f3fb3077a.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/80093146@N02/7158443387/)


I missed a chance to catch it directly with an AA MD-80 transiting the sun due to slow reflexes. Spent another 30 min waiting for the opprotunity to present itself again, without luck.

-Tad Carlson