Transit of Venus in Microwave

2004/06/09 Ver. 1:

2004/06/21 Ver. 2: modified a movie

Nobeyama Solar Radio Observatory

· What is the transit of Venus (link to “Transit of Venus”)

· The weather at NSRO on June 8, 2004?

June is the rainy season in Japan. Hence, it is cloudy and sometime rainy at Nobeyama Solar Radio Observatory (NSRO) on June 8, 2004. Of course, I could not watch the sun by my eyes.

· But, in Microwave…

We could observe the transit of Venus in microwave (17GHz), clearly. The black dot in the left-lower part of the solar disk is the silhouette of Venus.

The date and time at the lower part of the image is the observation time in Universal Time (UT).

Visible light is scattered and absorbed by clouds. Hence, we can not watch the sun on cloudy days. On the other hand, we can take an image of the sun in microwave using Nobeyama Radioheliograph (NoRH), since clouds can not scatter and absorb microwave.

· The movies of Venus transit in Microwave

· Movie =Large= (WMV 1.61MB)

(The time resolution of the movie is one image per 2 minutes)

· Movie =Large= (GIF movie 1.81MB)

· Movie =Small= (GIF movie 639KB)

(The time resolution of the movie is one image per 10 minutes)

· The prominence eruption with Venus transit

You can find the ejector on the left limb of the sun in the movie. The phenomenon is called “Prominence Eruption”.

The prominence eruption started before the Venus transit.

The sun shows the prominence eruption and Venus transit, simultaneously, and pleases our eyes.

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