Below are just 10 of the 306 photographs I took of the 8th June 2004 transit of Venus, 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.