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.
December 7, 2015
This was a daylight occultation of the planet. It was not easy to photograph. Many of the images were not very sharp because of vibrations introduced by the shutter on my digital SLR. This was taken with a 6-inch F5 reflector and a Nikon D5000.
June 19, 2020
This was a difficult occultation to see because it was low to the horizon. Luckily the weather cooperated and I was able to photograph some of the reappearance despite a narrow cloud interfering. The telescopic images were taken with a Canon R100 and a 10-inch F5 Skywatcher dobsonian reflector.
Future events
Future Venus occultation events are few and far between. Venus is usually close to the sun and these events often happen during daylight or just before/after sunrise/sunset. It also happens in a limited area of the country.From NH, I have identified a daylight occultation in June of 2026. There are then some occultations visible from the west coast of the US on 10 October 2029 and from the midwest/mountain states on 25 November 2030. The next big occultation for NH will be on September 13, 2031 where both the disappearance and reappearance will be visible in a dark sky (0421 EDT-0528 EDT).