farewell, thou beauteous queen!

Oh! then farewell, thou beauteous queen!
Thy sway may soften natures yet untamed,
Whose breasts, bereft of the native fury,
Then shall learn the milder virtues.
We, with anxious mind, follow thy latest footsteps here,
And far as thought can carry us;
My labours now bedeck the monument for future times
Which thou at parting left us. Thy return
Posterity shall witness; years must roll away,
But then at length the splendid sight
Again shall greet our distant children's eyes.

Jeremiah Horrocks (1618-1641)


Unfortunately, I was not able to witness the exciting event of venus transit because I could not get any protective filters for my eyes. Unlike many western countries where you could easily buy such stuff, here we don't have them. When we were kids we used to watch solar eclipses with developed negative rolls but the scientific community now say most of them are unsafe.

I was not prepared for this transit because I remembered about it only very recently. Within a short period of time there is no way you can easily get good filters. Anyway I am glad that I did not watch it without taking safety precautions because a medical description in the www.vt-2004.org outlines dangers to the eyes because of exposure to sun. It says solar retinopathy cases are regularly reported after solar eclipses, mainly caused by the use of inadequate filters.

I wonder to what extent awareness exists in our society concerning this. I have not heard about any student group observing the venus transit either.

So I am unable to repeat what Jeremiah Horrocks, the first observer of a venus transit said: "I then beheld a most agreeable spectacle, the object of my sanguine wishes, a spot of unusual magnitude and of perfectly circular shape".

Beggars can't be choosers.

But you can still participate in the VT-2004 activities by sending a drawing about what you think of the event and be one of the 25 lucky winners to receive a VT-2004 T-shirt. Or you can make a short video on the theme. Among the entries 12 laureate videos will be selected and two members of each laureate team will be invited for the VT-2004 Final Event to be held in Paris during the second week of November. Winners of second and third prizes get a visit to "internationally renowned science film production company in Europe and the opportunity to meet professional film makers. The first prize is a free trip for two to the ESO Paranal Observatory located in the Chilean Andes, one of the foremost astronomical centres in the world and the home of the Very Large Telescope (VLT)."

The Chilean Andes? Now that is a place I want to go.