I will not be in a position where I can get a telescope or anything. Looked at by the naked eye, is this going to be impressive at all? Indeed will it be visible or will the sun dazzle too much? Will be there be any sensation of movement or will venus cross the sun impercetibly slowly?
As an aside I laugh at the media warnings about looking at the sun with your naked eye, I’ve never heard of this harming anyone ever. Am I an ignorant, soon-to-be-blind buffoon?
Why do you even need media warnings that looking at the Sun with your naked eye is dangerous? Doing that hurts. The pain reflex is there for a reason. Do you also need the media to tell you not to stick your hand on a hot stove?
No, this will probably not be something that you can see with your naked eyes. The sun is too bright and will wash out Venus’ disk. I expect to see it through a welding mask. It will take several hours to cross the sun’s disk; there will be no perception of movement.
Oh, and if you squint at the sun long enough, you’ll go blind. Don’t do that.
As taken from the Sky and Telescope site. Take a piece of paper. Put a 2mm diamter black dot on it. Look at it from 23 feet away. If you can see that dot you have a chance.
Where I live (Michigan), the Sun sets while the transit is in progress. I may get a few minutes of safe direct viewing.
ETA: That reminds me, I should figure out now how to set up my telescope again. During the last one, I used that to project the image onto a piece of paper (I think I just left the eyepiece out).
Yup. Project the image of the sun on a piece of paper; your vision will thank you later.
Projecting the image of the sun onto a surface is OK, but in the last eclipse it was so much more awesome to watch it through eclipse glasses or properly darkened filters or lenses. That’s my plan tomorrow. If you try to look at the sun without any protection (don’t do it!) you’ll just see a bright blur. No way you’ll see the dot that is Venus .
When I was a kid, I looked at the sun a couple of times until it resolved into a disc, but my left eye would close on reflex. The vision in my right eye is significantly worse than in my left.
DON’T DO THIS.
On a few minutes of reading, I find that sometimes medical personnel, working with people who have damaged their vision during an eclipse, can tell when during the eclipse the person looked at the sun because the arc of the sun is burned into the retina.
I should note that this assumes you still otherwise have optical protection of course! Like welders googles of the right density or you are only looking at the sun right as it sets.
Here is my composite image from the 2004 Transit of Venus. It was taken with the equivalent of a 1000mm lens (normal is 50, so this was 20x). Now imaging the sun, at its normal size and brightness, and tiny Venus crossing it. Without magnification, all you’ll see is the sun.
Umm, it doesn;t hurt that much.
ttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/specials/eclipse99/355066.stm
*There is no pain when the retina is being burned, and the resulting visual symptoms do not occur until at least several hours after the injury has occurred - by which time it is far too late.
*
This also answers the Op. Yes, altho a brief glimpse may not do any significant damage, esp if viewed thru double polarized sets of lenses. (That means TWO sets of polarized sunglasses, set sideways so they are maximum dark. Mind you, even this is only safe for a very brief glimpse, do NOT stare at the sun!)
Mind you as panache45 sez, you won;t see anything with the naked eye anyway, and looking thru magnification is very very dangerous.
So, don’t bother. Just look at pictures of it, or set up a telescope and camera.
The annular eclipse a couple weeks ago was just barely visible with the naked eye for most of the range (though it was fairly obvious at the peak). You will definitely not notice a tiny spot moving across the surface.
(Yes, I did look at the eclipse with the naked eye. No, I did not damage my vision because I never spent more than 200 milliseconds at a time. Yes, for the vast majority of the time spent watching the eclipse I used proper protection. No, I don’t understand why people put up with the pain for the extended periods required to damage your vision.).
My understanding is that this is actually less safe than naked eye viewing. The reason is that there is no guarantee that the sunglasses will filter infrared light. However, your pupils will dilate because the visible spectrum is darker. Because your retina does not have any pain receptors, you may be destroying your vision without even having the pain and blink reflex you would get viewing the sun naturally.
That said, it may be that polarizers are more effective than general opacity when it comes to sunglasses operating in the infrared range. I don’t know that I’d trust my vision to that hypothesis.
Still, just about anything is safe for a brief glimpse. The worry is that a child or ignorant party may not know this.
This. Optical polarisers used in sunglasses do not of themselves necessarily work past the visual spectrum. Do not under any circumstances try crossed polarized glasses. The recent thread on viewing the annular eclipise covers the safety aspects. The maximum attenuation even in the visual region is not really enough to be safe anyway.
A useful factsheet from the locals.
As has been noted, Venus is a very small dot of the face of the sun, about 1/30th the diameter of the sun. It moves very slowly, about 12 minutes to cover a distance of its own diameter. You can get a limited sense of the progress in the period between first and second contact, and between third and fourth contact. Here the actual shape of the dot is a not a full disk against the solar disk, and you can see it very slowly change shape as it progresses. But once the disk of Venus is fully over the solar disk movement is imperceptible.
As a purely theoretical matter, I would in general expect a polarizer to be more effective at longer wavelengths than shorter, and therefore would hypothesize that crossed polarizers would be better at blocking IR than visible.
But that’s purely theoretical and in general. I’d definitely want to actually test it before trusting my eyes to it.
In any event, most museums, science centers, etc. will have cheap or free glasses available that are safe, and they’ll probably have viewing events organized, too. Just go that route; it’s easy.
DO NOT try to view the transit of Venus without something that is specifically designed to protect your eyes while looking directly at the Sun.
Sunglasses are not solar filters.
Don’t use crossed polarizers to look at the Sun. The problem here is, it’s not just visible light that can damage your eyes, it’s infrared and ultraviolet as well. Crossed polarizers are actually sometimes used in IR photography to block visible light but pass infrared.
Don’t try to make a solar filter out of Pop-Tart wrappers. The problem is, Pop Tart wrappers tear easily. That’s something you really, really don’t want happening with your solar filter.
Never drive while wearing glasses intended for solar viewing. When you’re wearing eclipse glasses, you won’t be able to see much other than the Sun (I know this from personal experience). Get to a safe viewing area before you put on the eclipse glasses. Walking around while wearing them could be dangerous.
The thing most people don’t realize is that*** the retinal damage from looking into an eclipse or other solar event is not immediate***. It won’t show up many times until years later. You may THINK you’ve gotten away with it, but the damage is there and it’s cumulative. So, while quick glimpses ARE safe if extremely short and not repeated–what is NOT safe is a long look or stare–it’s not wise to take chances.