I got up at 02:30 am EDT this morning after going bed at 22:00 (10 pm EDT) the night before....got showered and dressed up then headed out to New York City's famous landmark - Empire State Building. http://www.esbnyc.com I got to top of ESB by 04:45 am EDT. There were around 30 to 40 people....most of them set up with binocular, cameras, telescopes, homemade telescopes, sunspotters, homemade sunspotters, sun filter glass or glasses....Sunrise was set at 05:25 am....however there was some hazy and low-ceiling clouds....We didn't get to see sun until around 05:45 am in between of these low ceiling clouds....what a sight!!!!!! You can see a dot in the sun....the dot was VENUS! We had to use sun filter to protect our eyes from burning or damaging from sun's rays......Here in New York City, we were able to view the last two parts of phases - past the middle of the sun and exiting to side of the sun....the dot was near the center of sun...but a bit lower than the center.....Sun went behind the low ceiling cloud again by around 05:55 am....then came out clearly of the clouds by 06:10 am...we were so excited and chattered about the beautiful view of transit of Venus.....It lasted until 07:26 am as Venus at last exited the face of the sun.......We have to leave ESB by 08:00 am....only good thing out of visiting ESB was that it was a free ride for all of us to the observation deck from 04:00 am to 08:00 am arranged by the local NJ astronomy club that I go to their meetings once in while....Cool, eh? What is even more cool is that the woman baked cookies and called it "Transit of Venus"....know why? The cookies are sugar cookies with one mini M & M as a "dot" of Venus!!!! LOL....I regret that I cannot eat that cookie due to my wheat allergy. Wah!
We will get to see it again in 8 years....
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