Nothing So Rare As The Clouds Of June
Thursday, 7 June 2012 17:23![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_phil_physicsTuesday 5 June 2012
We were scheduled to have the Transit of Venus at sunset on Tuesday. After the weather disaster of the solar eclipse (DW), it was nice to see a sunny forecast for Tuesday. Er... a partly cloudy forecast. Partly cloudy with a chance of rain in the evening. Finally, part cloudy. Ah, weather forecasting. (grin)
Driving in to K-zoo late on Tuesday morning was spectacular -- at least for the veritable parade of fluffy little clouds scooting across the sky with wispy whiteness in some of the bright blue interstitial areas. Not great for transit watching, perhaps, but that wasn't for hours. When I got to the office, I had the ersatz fisheye lens, so did some shots of the sky. Note that there is no way to attach any filters to the Sigma 12mm f8 Fish-eye, and one certainly can't put a polarizer on that huge domed front element, so I messed with the contrast and brightness to mimic some of the lovely sky I was seeing with my polarized sun glasses.
Noontime, East towards Rood Hall and Everett Tower. (Click on photo for larger.)
North. (Click on photo for larger.)
Northwest. (Click on photo for larger.)
Southwest. (Click on photo for larger.)
When I came out at five o'clock, it had changed somewhat, but still had me a bit worried. Now the transit was scheduled to start for West Michigan around 6pm, with sunset around 9pm, and Venus appears as just a small dot against the sun, so we're not going to see some dramatic eclipse type darkening. And I could take some light hazy clouds at sunset, too. Just not big ones.
Northwest at 5pm. The high white blob is the overexposed sun in cloud. (Click on photo for larger.)
On the way home, I ended up driving under a big dark cloud, but it cleared up a lot by 8pm. So I certainly got some dramatic cloud shots already -- next up was the sunset.
Dr. Phil
We were scheduled to have the Transit of Venus at sunset on Tuesday. After the weather disaster of the solar eclipse (DW), it was nice to see a sunny forecast for Tuesday. Er... a partly cloudy forecast. Partly cloudy with a chance of rain in the evening. Finally, part cloudy. Ah, weather forecasting. (grin)
Driving in to K-zoo late on Tuesday morning was spectacular -- at least for the veritable parade of fluffy little clouds scooting across the sky with wispy whiteness in some of the bright blue interstitial areas. Not great for transit watching, perhaps, but that wasn't for hours. When I got to the office, I had the ersatz fisheye lens, so did some shots of the sky. Note that there is no way to attach any filters to the Sigma 12mm f8 Fish-eye, and one certainly can't put a polarizer on that huge domed front element, so I messed with the contrast and brightness to mimic some of the lovely sky I was seeing with my polarized sun glasses.
Noontime, East towards Rood Hall and Everett Tower. (Click on photo for larger.)
North. (Click on photo for larger.)
Northwest. (Click on photo for larger.)
Southwest. (Click on photo for larger.)
When I came out at five o'clock, it had changed somewhat, but still had me a bit worried. Now the transit was scheduled to start for West Michigan around 6pm, with sunset around 9pm, and Venus appears as just a small dot against the sun, so we're not going to see some dramatic eclipse type darkening. And I could take some light hazy clouds at sunset, too. Just not big ones.
Northwest at 5pm. The high white blob is the overexposed sun in cloud. (Click on photo for larger.)
On the way home, I ended up driving under a big dark cloud, but it cleared up a lot by 8pm. So I certainly got some dramatic cloud shots already -- next up was the sunset.
Dr. Phil
