I had to be at a meeting in City Hall from 5:30 until 8pm. When I got outside I was surprised to find few clouds, but the sun was so low only the tops of some of the buildings were lit. There wasn't time to get to the Fuertes Observatory on North Campus, which I heard was open for viewing and equipped with proper filters. I climbed onto the roof of the parking garage on Green Street and found a small bit of direct sunlight on a wall at the top of a far stairwell. I used my binoculars (I always take them when I leave home in daylight) to project an image of the sun, quite oval as it was about to set, onto the concrete, and I was able to see the black dot toward the bottom right. There was another guy on top of the South Cayuga Street parking garage using a home-made shoebox-sized cardboard box device to view the sun's image. I didn't have time to see movement of Venus. Instead I saw the sun's image change as it went behind the top of another building. I also heard Chimney Swifts and saw Rock Pigeons, but had to be content with a short bird list for the outing. That's okay considering the rare astronomical event I witnessed.
--Dave Nutter
On Jun 05, 2012, at 07:53 PM, Meena Haribal <m...@cornell.edu> wrote:
Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone
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