I had, with my usual memory, completely forgotten the celestial event that I could go and see, and after D and I picked up KTB, we took her for a picnic dinner at Forest Park:

I observed, at a distance, while feeding her, some strange equipment, and photographed it. D identified it from my full-zoom photo as a telescope:

This instantly reminded me about Venus transiting past the sun, and since KTB didn't seem very inclined to finish her dinner, D and I decided to go to the Planetarium, where we felt there would be telescopes set up: Alas, there were no telescopes there, but there was Mary Anne Moosmann, a science teacher from Rockwood, who had a pair of binoculars and two panes of dark-tinted glass used for welding masks. We took a grateful look through the binocs, and then I had the idea of getting a shot through the panes of glass. I started by not being able to focus at all: But then, managed to get the spot that was Venus (at about 2 o'clock): The sun had also broken free of the clouds by this time, and I was really thrilled to be able to get this shot on a non-DSLR camera! The sun was tinted green because of the welder's glass pieces. I tried other exposure settings, but they didn't work as well. The sun become lemony-limey: It was most helpful of Mary Anne to let me get these shots! Then we decided to go to the Spanish Pavilion, where Mary Anne reminded me the telescopes were set up. After parking the car, D also transited the sun: We found several telescopes set up: And joined one queue, and got our turn pretty soon: I found another gentleman had set up a Galaxy telescope and joined that queue, too: And instead of trying to get the image this time, I got the small image along with the viewfinder, too: You can see the image of the sun if you look at the small orange ball in the dark area in the centre of the viewfinder. Meanwhile, I also saw Venus at work elsewhere...these two couldn't stop smiling at each other!

D was on call and HAD a call, so we left the park, and the sunset:

The sun slowly sank behind the trees, Venus and all…

Hope you enjoyed our near-miss solar system experience!