Sic transit gloria Venus

Well, until the next transit, perhaps.

This morning I got up before dawn (the birds were already awake) to go see the Venus transit^[1] at Harvard's center for astrophysics. We (Queue, Theora, and I) got there a few minutes before the 5 A.M. start, and there was already a longish line. At some point we were given blue stickers, which meant we were in the fourth group of thirty allowed up to the roof^[2]. Which meant that there was plenty of time to talk with the other people I knew in line (waves to TCB and DancingDeer especially).

Finally, we made it up to the roof, and there was a plethora of viewing options, from so many different telescopes. I am not geeky enough, since I don't know which ones I viewed through, but there were many of them (not the large one in the dome on the roof, though). Very cool, seeing the small black dot of Venus against the huge round light of the sun. My favorite view was throught an odd-looking telescope (a bright red one set up on a picnic table, looking like a squat cylinder attached to a sphere), through which the sun looked not only lit, but fiery orange-yellow. Of course, Venus is moving so slowly (er, as seen by us, anyway) that the images were static; I can't wait to see some animated sequences from this.

It was so tempting to look directly towards the sun, with no obstructions and all attention focuses that way. Instead, I looked out over the trees of Cambridge, with the tower of Mem Hall clear in the foreground in front of the Boston skyline, which was hazy in the early light. A beautiful view I'm unlikely to see again.

We came downstairs, taking a few minutes in the hall where there was a live feed broadcasted from vt2004.org (a balcony decorated with the astronomical symbols for the planets above), then headed out. And promptly ran into Mabfan and Gnomi^[3], though apparently we missed Farwing (dang). He has a book about the transit, and took notes about their sightings; I feel so science hoi polloi sometimes.

Driving to work afterward, I saw someone had set up a telescope on Garden Street and a bunch of people were waiting to see the transit; I like that there can be random drive-by astronomy near where I live :-).


[1] I still can't stop thinking about planets taking the subway.
[2] People were turned away after the lines got too long. I suppose I shouldn't've been suprised after the crowds to see Mars, but this was so early... there must be a lot more astronomy enthusiasts than I'd thought.
[3] Read her (much more complete) account.

Notes

I stopped at the Butcherie this morning. As usual, I found things I'd not seen before, including corned beef knishes (?) and the house brand of chorizo aka "Mexican sauceges" (!).

Irises are almost gone, alas. I so enjoy their interesting shapes, especially compared to the simplicity of tulips and daffodils. Rhododendrons are also fading, but at least the mountain laurels are just starting.

I don't have an alarm clock. To get up in time to see the transit, I decided to use time bake, so I'd wake to freshly baked bread. Since I'd put in the cinnamon-dried cherry bread before going to bed, it had a very long second rise, and turned much much puffier as a result. Another result was that the bread couldn't let the filling out (a perennial problem for me), having filled all available room on the baking tray during the rise.

I am not happy about two days of 90+ degree (F) weather. On the other hand, if it's only two days, then returning to the 70s as predicted, I'll cope.

I had forgotten some of my favorite Reagan statements (especially the one that trees cause pollution). I was not impressed with his tenure at the White House, and it seems like it's been a long slide into Alzheimer's since then, so I'm a bit surprised by all the outpouring of emotion, not just from politicos, but citizens around the country.
Side note: this has also brought up my squickiness about not burying bodies for a while after people die.

I'm rereading The Book of Three (Lloyd Alexander) (thanks, Bitty!) for the first time since I was small, and I'm struck with how I keep thinking of The Lord of the Rings. Gurgi <=> Gollum, Cauldron-Born <=> orcs, etc. And the whole deterministic tone, too. Still, the plot is different (psychic pigs!), the world different. I'm enjoying it more than I did the first time (it was a bit too scary for me at the time, making it hard to turn off the light late at night), though certain Assistant Pig-Keepers come across as rather... younger in attitudes and reactions than a character of the same age would likely be written today.