Transits of Venus across the face of the Sun are among the rarest of planetary alignments. In fact, only eight such events have occurred since the invention of the telescope (1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882, 2004 and 2012). If you missed the 2004 or 2012 transits you’ll have to wait another 105 years for the next Venus transit to occur on December 11, 2117.

I had an excellent view of the eastern horizon from Worcester Regional Airport in Worcester, Massachusetts. Sunrise was at 5:08 a.m. EDT on the morning of the Venus transit. As you can see the clouds were pretty thick but that didn’t spoil the view of the transit.

The equipment I used to take these images of the transit included a 90mm Meade ETX telescope, a Canon PowerShot S50 digital camera and an Orion full-apeture glass solar filter. These images were captured via the “digiscoping” method. Digiscoping is a method of holding the camera up to the eyepiece of the telescope.

Click any image to go to the gallery for a better view and related details.

Detailed information regarding this transit can be found on the NASA Eclipse web site.