Just got this great image and message from friends via email...thanks for the permission to post here! - sm
[My friend] sent me this wonderful collage that her brother made of the Transit of Venus. I just love how such an abstract and unearthly event is rendered tangible and familiar. The projection of the sun (inverted!), and being held by [the girl] between her hands reminds me of that famous Blake engraving where Uriel (?) is measuring the cosmos with calipers. Here it's a young girl and her dad grasping the same thing.
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The Transit of Venus has a special place in the history of science. Timing the passage of our second planet across the the sun gave up the first big yardstick for measuring the cosmos. It was the stuff of high adventure and scientific prowess - sailing to Tahiti and crossing deserts with astonomical instruments, funded by kings and states.
I saw the transit too, sitting on the bedrock of the Canadian Shield having waited for the sun to climb above the morning mist.
I used a few layers of silvered mylar from an emergency blanket to cover the objective lenses of a pair of binoculars and so protect my eyes (not a recommended technique!) This allowed me to look directly at the Sun and Venus.
There were a few fleeting moments where I swear I actually felt myself to be sitting on one planet and watching another cross in front of the huge sun ... meaning, it wasn't a mental or conceptual thought, instead it was a direct experience - as solid as watching someone walk past on the street.
written by guest poster:
Gordon Hicks |
I used to get that direct solid planetary experience when I was a kid playing cops and robbers in Vancouver. I'd be lying in ambush under a hedge, and there'd be an earthquake tremor, and my body would suddenly know I was on a spinning globe. I felt I had to grasp the dirt with my fingers to keep from flying off.
When this post was slowly booting up, on my quirky equipment, I got random flashes of fragments of words and blurred images, and my mind put them together to get this: the dad at the top had a staple gun, and he was stapling the arms from the image below back onto the Venus de Milo (the amorphous white blob on the right).
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Just got this great image and message from friends via email...thanks for the permission to post here! - sm
[My friend] sent me this wonderful collage that her brother made of the Transit of Venus. I just love how such an abstract and unearthly event is rendered tangible and familiar. The projection of the sun (inverted!), and being held by [the girl] between her hands reminds me of that famous Blake engraving where Uriel (?) is measuring the cosmos with calipers. Here it's a young girl and her dad grasping the same thing.
I saw the transit too, sitting on the bedrock of the Canadian Shield having waited for the sun to climb above the morning mist.
I used a few layers of silvered mylar from an emergency blanket to cover the objective lenses of a pair of binoculars and so protect my eyes (not a recommended technique!) This allowed me to look directly at the Sun and Venus.
There were a few fleeting moments where I swear I actually felt myself to be sitting on one planet and watching another cross in front of the huge sun ... meaning, it wasn't a mental or conceptual thought, instead it was a direct experience - as solid as watching someone walk past on the street.
written by guest poster:
Gordon Hicks
- sally mckay 6-11-2004 9:13 am
I used to get that direct solid planetary experience when I was a kid playing cops and robbers in Vancouver. I'd be lying in ambush under a hedge, and there'd be an earthquake tremor, and my body would suddenly know I was on a spinning globe. I felt I had to grasp the dirt with my fingers to keep from flying off.
When this post was slowly booting up, on my quirky equipment, I got random flashes of fragments of words and blurred images, and my mind put them together to get this: the dad at the top had a staple gun, and he was stapling the arms from the image below back onto the Venus de Milo (the amorphous white blob on the right).
- Jean (guest) 6-11-2004 5:11 pm