Venus occultations I have observed
I have observed three Venus occultations over the past thirty years of astronomy. All were early morning events and I recorded two of them on film.
July 17, 1974
I remember going with the local astronomy club to the beach in Jacksonville, where we waited for the moon to rise. I recall watching the moon rise from a cloud bank before the event and seeing the planet appear on the earthshine side of a crescent moon as twilight began. This is all based on memory but I do remember the frustration with the clouds as well as seeing the moon with Venus in the twilight sky.
December 26, 1978
I had been in the US Navy for over a year when I went home on leave for Christmas. I woke up early the next day and hauled out my Astroscan telescope to oberve the occultation that was almost a graze from Jacksonville, Florida. The following pictures show the sequence I saw that morning. The photographs were taken via the afocal method through the telescope.
April 25, 1987
My fellow members of the Central Flordia Astronomical Society and I ventured to a dark orange grove to perform a night of astronomy. We were also going to watch the Venus Occultation in the early morning. Disappearance would occur in the dark but the reappearance would occur after sunrise. For Florida, the weather was pretty cool and we had to dress warmly. It was a great event that all enjoyed and would be my last Venus Occultation.
This photograph shows the group standing as the moon and Venus rose behind us. For some reason, I managed to stand directly beneath Venus and the moon. Some of the names escape me but from left to right they are Tim Printy (myself), Rick Smith, unknown, unknown, Dave Brewer, unknown, Dale Hatch, Barlow Pepin, Andy Druga.
This sequence shows the disappearance of Venus behind the moon. They were taken via prime focus on my Dynamax 8 SCT using Kodachrome 200 film. Shutter vibration caused Venus to blur in a few of the photos.
This image is of the reappearance after sunrise. Again, this was taken via prime focus using a Dynamax 8.
Future events
Future Venus occultation events are few and far between. I am unaware of any well situated events that have transpired since 1987 (there were probably some daylight events) that I might have missed. Several times I was on patrol at sea on board a submarine so I might have missed an event or two. Venus occultations usually happen somewhere in the world at least once a year. Unfortunately, geography has conspired against me. It will be many years before that is going to happen again in my present location of NH. As best I can tell, there are no significant events until June of 2020. This should be visible from Maine and Nova Scotia before Sunrise.
Venus Occultations are not only exciting but events worthy of photography. I hope these images might give some photographers ideas about what to expect when they attempt to photograph such an event.