In a message dated 5/24/04 4:56:23 AM, tiwancio@sc.rr.com writes:
Hey all, I plan to head to the South Carolina beach on the 8th to
maximize my view of the transit. Given the size difference of the Sun
and Venus do you think a 300mm tele will provide too small an image for
the planet's disc to be visible? Otherwise I have to get cracking in
making an off-axis filter for my 8"SCT and coming up with a tripod mount
in the next week or two.
For the telephoto shots I use solar film held in a Cokin A series gel
holder. This makes it easy to use a colored filter of you choice behind
the Baader in another holder. Easy to pop the color filter in and out so
you can take back to back images with and without or switch between
Baader and Thousand Oaks film. I also plan on shooting on Velvia 50 so I
can enlarge to the max.
Thank in advance,
Thom Iwancio
Thom:
Just a 300mm might be a little short.
Do you have a 2x Extender to make it a 600mm.
I've shot numerous solar eclipses at 600mm.
For those of us in the US, another picture possibility is shooting the sun, with the transit in progress, just as it rises. Terrestial objects like buildings, trees, off shore oil rigs, ships, farm-ranch windmills, etc. could figure into the composition. Also, when the sun first rises, it's intensity is reduced by atmospheric pollution so that a solar filter might not be necessary, at least for a few minutes. The sun's disk is usually flattened by refraction and there is the possibilty of seeing the 'green flash' with Venus on the disk.
Kent Kirkley
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