May and June of 2012 brought us 2 exciting stargazing events in the daytime.
The first event was the solar eclipse. There are 4 types of solar eclipses:
A total eclipse–where the Moon completely hides the Sun.
An annular eclipse–where the Moon cannot completely hide the Sun around the edges. Annular means circular.
You get a circle of light around the Moon.
A partial eclipse–where the Moon only partially covers up the Sun.
A hybrid eclipse–where depending on your location on the Earth and the angle of the alignment of the Sun, Moon and Earth, you can see both a total eclipse and an annular eclipse.
On May 21st, for a few hours in the morning, and annular eclipse was seen over many places in Japan. Unfortunately, it was not a total annular eclipse in Takamatsu, although other cities in southern and eastern Kagawa could see a pretty ring. I took this photo through the clouds from my apartment in Saiho-Cho. Luckily it was cloudy, because I was able to take this photo with only a dark filter on my camera. The clouds actually make it look cool.
Later, On June 6, Venus passed in front of the Sun. We were lucky in Japan, because we could see the entire thing.
It lasted from about 7:15 in the morning until about 1:45 in the afternoon.
It took more than 6 hours.
On the campus of Takamatsu Univeristy, many regular students, teachers, staff, and lifelong learning students had the chance to gaze at this during lunchtime hours.
We used glasses and my telescope.
This time, without a filter on my camera, there was no way to see it.
The Sun is just too bright. I used the darkest camera filter you can buy.
It is specifically made for taking pictures of the sun.
This was my first time to take a picture of the Sun.
The big black dot is Venus and the smaller dots are sun spots.
（Williams R.T.）