Venus Transit

I visited a viewing event at a local observatory yesterday afternoon in the hopes of seeing the transit of Venus. But because the sky looked like this

the sun was not visible. I got to peek at the cool telescopes, though, and see the progress of the transit on a laptop. Though a bit disappointing, the event was made livelier by the presence of a vocal (is there any other kind?) conspiracy theorist of the moon-landing-was-a-hoax variety.

I went home, and an hour or so later the sun came out and stayed out long enough that I decided it would be worth another try. This time, success. I was able to see the transit through both telescope and eclipse glasses. 

Mercury and Venus are the only planets that are able to pass between Earth and the sun. Mercury does it every 13 years or so. Venus won’t do it again until 2117. If I figure out a way to stick around for that one, I'll let you know.