If you are near Seattle, head to the two oval areas...downstream of the mountains of Vancouver Island or the Olympics. Cloud free conditions. Seattle is in a convergence zone and will NOT be a good location to view the transit. The coast will be decent...off and on clouds...but there will be gaps. (I have folks there right now reporting decent viewing) Same with the Willamette Valley. If you are driving south on I5 you will hit the clearing from Tacoma to roughly Olympia.
Sun breaks in Capitol Hill and the transit was visible at least around 3:30pm!
ReplyDeleteI saw it in Vancouver, WA about an hour ago. Our science teacher had these cool filter viewers that he let me borrow- what an amazing thing to see (once the clouds went away...).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the updates Cliff! Transit is looking great in Oly.
ReplyDeleteDown here on the Key Peninsula we are able to see the transit with my welding helmet. The sky is wonderfully clear, brisk winds from the SW. Doing some sunset time lapse here on the beach photography as I write this!
ReplyDeleteGot some clear spots on Central and North Whidbey, and I got some photographs. Yay!
ReplyDeleteHad a great evening view of the transit in Eugene!
ReplyDeleteCliff,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the updates and the guidance.
I and my wife managed to catch the transit just after it's start at Steel Lake Park in Federal Way, and then headed south to catch the end at Titlow Park south of Tacoma on the water.
Cliff,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the updates and the guidance.
I and my wife managed to catch the transit just after it's start at Steel Lake Park in Federal Way, and then headed south to catch the end at Titlow Park south of Tacoma on the water.
Cliff,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the updates and the guidance.
I and my wife managed to catch the transit just after it's start at Steel Lake Park in Federal Way, and then headed south to catch the end at Titlow Park south of Tacoma on the water.
Your updates and guidance led us to the clear sky south of the Olympics, then to the Nisqually Delta nature center where there was a wonderful man with several great telescopes that he shared. I got some excellent pictures, and my binoculars/white poster board 'shadow' pictures of the sun wowed the crowd. Even the shadows provided good pictures. (It's a modified pin hole camera, so you don't ever look directly at the sun.) I would send you pictures if I knew how to do so on a blog. Thanks again for the weather advice. -- Jane
ReplyDeleteThe clouds began to clear here in Olympia about the time the transit began, 3:00ish I think. By 4:00 or 4:30, aided by a stiff breeze, the sky was amazingly clear all the way to sunset.
ReplyDeleteWe set up a crude little observatory with small binoculars clamped to a camera tripod. The sun’s image was then easy to project onto a small white card held a few inches behind the binoculars (NEVER look directly at the sun without proper filtration!). It was a thrill to witness this event in person. Thanks for keeping us up to date, Cliff.
p.s. On Sunday or Monday one of our esteemed local TV meteorologists (don’t remember which) was live on the air talking about the Venus transit when he mentioned, if the clouds cleared, you could “see it with the naked eye”. Yikes! What an irresponsible thing to blurt out! You can all too easily do serious damage to your eyesight looking directly at the sun, even with conventional sunglasses, with “the naked eye”. Shame on that TV weather guy.
Cliff, thank you so much for your updates throughout the day. They made all the difference.
ReplyDeleteI left Bellevue at noon heading towards Longview where I would reassess. I kept checking for updates and saw those two patches of sinking air near Sequim and Nisqually. I turned the car around at Centralia and headed back north, finding an impromptu star party at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge.
Thanks to Dan who brought the three telescopes, including the Coronado solar telescope which was really outstanding.
Jane, I was the other Dan who brought the filtered binoculars. It was great to meet you, and clear skies to you for future eclipse chases!
Thanks for your guidance on Tuesday Cliff. We had 32mm of rain in the gauge that day where we live in Sammamish. Without your help we never would have considered trying to drive to clear skies since it was so awful at home. We found an hour of perfect viewing weather in Auburn then drove back home to more gray skies and rain!
ReplyDeleteThanks,
David and Betty
I went to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada to view the transit. It was awesome! Completely clear for the first three hours, then some haze and then some bands of cloud and we were worried we wouldn't see the end. But just for the last 10 minutes of the transit, when the sun was 2 degrees above the horizon, came a clear spot and we could see the 3rd and 4th contacts!
ReplyDelete