williams college

"Thank You, Jeremiah Horrocks" - The 2012 Transit of Venus

11mo ago

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The Williams College expedition to record the last Transit of Venus of this century. The team, led by Prof Jay M. Pasachoff, traveled to the 10,000 foot summit of Haleakala, where the air is clear, windy, cold, low on oxygen, and, most importantly provides an unobstructed view of the entire event. Their goal was to image the atmosphere of Venus as it was backlit by the Sun. Their data may one day help identify other Earth size planets orbiting other stars. My personal goal was to record the entire 6 hour, 40 minute, event in the visible spectrum. What should have been a simple task wasn't. In spite of my efforts to anticipate each step involved in creating this time lapse video, just about everything that could go wrong did. Yet, with great effort and with the generous help of the professionals on Jay's team, my daughter Raisha and I managed to capture 119,512 images of the Transit. We learned so much. I want to thank everyone involved for his patience, enthusiasm and good humor. It was an honor to join all of you at this historic event. And a special thank you to Rob Ratkowski for sharing the stars... amazing! Oh, and do remember, Hawaii does NOT use Daylight Savings Time ! Aram Friedman To hear more of M. Salieu Suso's Kora music visit his web site. http://salieususo.fourfour.com/discography

williams college

"Thank You, Jeremiah Horrocks" - The 2012 Transit of Venus

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