The slender Young Moon will be close to Venus on the evening of June 11-
But first, I want to warn you about eye safety if you think of looking at tomorrow’s partial eclipse. which we’ve already described.
Here is the advice I used to put into a box in the “Eclipses” section of the Astronomical Calendar:
DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY TOWARD THE SUN, except when it is totally eclipsed [which it won’t be, this time]. Some safe ways during partial eclipse are:<$>
– Projected image through a pinhole, or through a telescope or monocular, onto a sheet of something white and fairly stiff. If possible, rig these objects so that they stay in place, otherwise the image will tremble.
– Looking through No. 14 welder’s glass (or No. 12 if the Sun is dim).
– Eclipse-viewing spectacles if they are from a provider you know you can trust.
Do NOT use smoked glass, exposed film, crossed polarizing filters, colored water. They may seem to dim the Sun, but infrared rays get through.
Do NOT look through a telescope unless you really know what you are doing. Any filter should be over the front, NOT behind the eyepiece.
When the Sun is dim (low or through cloud) still take only BRIEF naked-eye looks. Retinal damage can happen without hurting.
Now –
Calmer department
The slender Young Moon will be close to Venus as they go down toward the western horizon in the evening sky of Friday, June 11.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
The Moon is, at the place and time of our picture, only 39 hours “old” – that is, past its New Moon moment when it got partly in front of the Sun at the place and time of our picture.
The appulse, or closest conjunction of Moon and Venus, will be on June 12 at 8 Universal Time, which is 5 or more hours earlier by American clocks, thus during the night. So on the next evening, June 12, the Moon will have moved to about 8° higher than Venus, and will be easier to see, both because of altitude and because, being 24 hours “older,” it will be slightly less slender.
The arrows through the moving bodies, including the Sun, show their movement in relation to the starry background from 2 days before to 2 days after the time of the picture.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after publishing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version.
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
Is there a reflecting analog to a pinhole camera? I’ve been using a small flat mirror — a compact mirror or something even smaller — to reflect an image of the sun onto a distant white surface, a building, delivery van, or even a snowbank. The farther the surface, the larger (and dimmer, of course) the image. It will be fuzzier than the image from a pinhole projection (larger pinhole, in effect) but it will be more easily viewed by a large number of people.
I’ve never seen any other mention of this idea, probably because I just haven’t looked in the right places. I can’t be the only one who’s thought of it.
“Do NOT use …exposed film…”
Has the sun grown significantly brighter in the IR or UV during the past 50 years? For I recall making homemade filters using fully exposed 100′ bulk rolls of Kodak Pan-X film, handing them out to neighbors and fellow amateurs, and believe it or not, nobody went blind! I know there were caveats, expressed in the pages of S&T: Do not using color emulsions, or no B&W film unless it has been fully exposed. But I did not notice any such finessing in the above warning. So what gives?
Years ago guessing around 1993?there was an eclipse in over London and I had a girlfriend who lived there.she was at work for the eclipse so I snuck her camera out of the draw,a Kodak disk camera in which the film was placed in a cardboard disk and rotated around in the camera probably designed as a replacement for 125 cassette cameras and the little 110’s rather than 35mm?, observed the eclipse through it and some other spare disks in the draw, tripling up the film, put it back in the camera and the camera back in the draw!she never said anything about the camera being faulty later so guessing she never tried to take any photos with those disks!as far as I know my eyes didn’t get harmed but I’d never do such a thing now or recommend anyone else does! although I’d never find a disk camera now!
Wise advice.i’m going to use solar film a front my 25mm Pocket Borg Refractor and attach a camera to the back using a very wide angle 25mm Kellner and look at it via the screen.the wide angle will allow me to easily find Sol and once done I can increase the image via the camera.hopefully it’ll be clear, it’s a reasonable forecast semi cloudy or if you are a glass half full person semi clear!