Having worked virtually 24/7 for the past month, I decided to take today, 8 June 2004 off and photograph the transit of Venus. Below are just 10 of the 306 photographs I took of the event plus a small composite image of the event. At my home in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire - latitude 51 degrees 55.256 minutes north and longitude 2 degrees 34.682 minutes west, the transit began at 05:44 GMT, finishing at 11:20 GMT (add one hour for British Summer Time).

A transit of Venus is rare but predictable and, as the last took place one hundred and twenty two years ago in 1882, we who observed today's event are the first human beings alive on the planet to have witnessed such a phenomenon. Transits of Venus take place in pairs and the next is due in 2012. I may get the opportunity to photograph that one, God willing but I don't think I'll hang around for the next, over a century later. It will favour the Southern Hemisphere, anyway.

These are my 'hobby' photographs, so you are welcome to download and use them on other web sites. If used, please credit them with a courtesy notice which includes a hyperlink to the wyenot.com home page at: http://www.wyenot.com. Thank you.

I took these photographs using a Nikon D100, a Sigma lens at 200mm focal length and a solar eclipse filter, hence the black background. I did not sort them to find the best shots, I just grabbed a few at random to get them on the site quickly, so I do have better ones. I have not quoted the exposure and aperture settings as these changed for virtually every shot as the sun rose higher in the sky and as fine misty cloud occasionally covered the sun. I do have them recorded as metadata though, should anybody need this info for scientific reasons. I also have a few pre and post transit shots. I cannot afford a hydrogen filter as astronomy is only a hobby to me, so I am afraid the sun does not appear red as seen on TV. I hope you find the photographs interesting though. I had a focus problem with the first as I was still rubbing the sleep from my eyes. (Tina was still snoring - I could hear her through the open bedroom window, and even 'Captain Flint', my 'cultured' Amazon parrot was still asleep).