GT Telescope Venus Transit First Light

GT TELESCOPE FIRST LIGHT
New Genius Telescope Debuts First Light
The Rare 2012 Transit of Venus

GT Introduction
The Tri Moded GT Genius Telescope achieved First Light in a ceremony of dedication and commemoration on June 6th, 2012, during the rare Transit of Venus. Color imaging took part on Earth and part in space above the Earth’s atmosphere. (GT resides in two places at one time) 

Mission Objectives
In particular, the GT mission objective studied and imaged the solar radiation as filtered through the atmosphere of Venus, leading to a greater understanding of Venus, its atmosphere and greenhouse effect and how it can be applied to the Earth. Although the planet Venus is silhouetted against the solar disk, the objective is to study details of the Venusian atmosphere by observing the filtered characteristics of solar radiation and to better understand Venus.

GT Configurations

GT was put into the smallest diameter ratio at 1.5-mile aperture. The UP was kept variable and the Adjunctive Array was kept in Earth orbit. The Multi Mag Slider engaged in Multi Pass.

Flight Panel Heads Up Display
The new GT has a flight panel which serves as an instrumentation control panel and heads up display. This is a window into the particular image view and includes data about the telescope aperture in meters and inches, a six digit numerical window index, orthogonal measurement scales, a centering index, four static position markers, the observational selected object title, a description of what's visible, a description of the mission objective, the UP Universal Penetrator setting value, details regarding the specific Adjunctive Array, details of the Multi Mag Slider (MMS) arrangement, journey time in craft mode, distance to the object being viewed, and list of credits in no particular order.

GT Results
The powerful GT telescope is capable of massive image scale, as seen in this reduced image of Venus against the backdrop of the Sun. Minute image details show the Venusian atmosphere with solar radiation penetrating the outer chemical compositional layers as the planet moves across the solar orbit. Fine solar detail is instantaneously frozen in time. Full color is maintained throughout the image plane.

Operations
The GT Genius Telescope is operated by the Big Brain machine, a supercomputer with 100,500 processors of varying types. A cooperation exists between Humanoido, the Big Brain, the DSC Deep Space Center, the ULTRA Space Administration, and NASA.

Venus Transit 2012

Big Brain Machine view of Venus Transit 2012 - All photos copyright Humanoido

BIG BRAIN CAPTURES RARE TRANSIT OF VENUS

TODAY: Using it's robotic refracting 60mm AT telescope, the electronic Big Brain machine has captured a rare event - the Transit of Venus across the face of the sun. 

A transit of Venus occurs when Venus passes directly between the sun and earth.  This alignment is very rare, coming in pairs that are eight years apart but separated by over a century.

This happens when Venus passes in between the orbits of the Sun and Earth. This digital preprocessing image was taken about one hour ago, on Wednesday June 6th, 2012 at 11:49 am local time from Taiwan. As the sun rose, clouds and overcast completely intervened. During the time span from 11 am on into the afternoon, it suddenly cleared to a beautiful blue sky and the best images were captured. Previous atmospheric studies indicated such a weather pattern clearing was likely, and this held true.

Venus Transit 2012 Full solar view

To be on the safe side so as not to completely miss the event, numerous images were initially shot through the clouds. (The next Transit of Venus occurs in 105 years.) The 1st shown photo employed an 8mm Brandon Orthoscopic ocular for a solar "eyepiece projection" method of imaging. Projection distance averaged about 12-inches and a SONY DSC-T10 was used in automatic EI setting and magnifying mode with the super Steady Shot engaged. The projected full disc view with the 24mm FL ocular averaged around 8-inches in diameter. The large black dot is the planet Venus and the background is the Sun. Although Venus was slowly traversing across the face of the Sun, this slow movement was only noticeable in the time lapsed photography. The full solar disk image was obtained with a 24mm FL Meade ocular. Several sunspot groupings are just visible along with granulation.

June 5th, 2012 sunspots

A solar sunspot study was made in full color on the previous day of June 5th, 2012 at 4:43:48 pm local time, using ISO125 at 1/400 F5.6 to identify the position of solar spots, test the imaging results, obtain satisfactory full disk image size and resolution, position enlarged disc views, and lock down the setup and imaging procedures. (see June 5th photo)

June 6th sunspots during the transit

Approximately nine sunspot groupings are seen.

Note: no solar filters were used and the telescope was not aperture stopped down, however, the water vapor content of the atmosphere was extremely heavy, creating a layer acting as a reflective filter. (Taiwan is an island surrounded by ocean.) The telescope was set up on top of a very tall skyscraper overlooking the city, on a very heavy and stable concrete perimeter which has unobstructed views of the horizon in all cardinal directions. The telescope's temperature was monitored to avoid overheating and damage to optical, metal and polymer parts, as the image was safely projected and three cameras were used.

The image was received by a standard size clipboard mount with an Advanced Agro Double A A4 Premium sheet of photographic print paper of 210 x 297mm size at 80gsm. A small breeze at that height made keeping things in one place challenging. At one time, the telescope shroud was blown off during a break in astro imaging.

The two additional cameras were a Canon and Apple iPhone. Changes in heat temperature made periodic refocusing necessary for the most successful image sharpness. Several times, the SONY camera overheated and failed. Actual ambient temperature was around 95 degrees and in the sun directly the temperature rose to at least 120 deg. F on upwards to oven-like heat. To avoid heat stroke, the imaging session was suspended before event completion.

Images were downloaded to a Mac computer and preprocessed with Apple iPhoto using Edit, Adjust, Exposure, Contrast, Definition, Sharpness and Rotate. About 140 images were captured with the Sony camera and a set with a Canon Ixus 100 IS. Apple iPhone 3G held four images, primarily as a backup plan in case the other images underwent some anomaly phenomenon.

1994 OTM Venus Transit article image

The most recent transit before 2012 occurred June 8, 2004, and the next upcoming transits are in December 10-11, 2117, and in December 2125. As an interesting note, in 1992, the first issue of Observatory Techniques Magazine ran an article about time travel to the Transit of Venus in 2004 (page 10). It included a computer generated image of Venus moving across the Sun which looks remarkably similar in position to the actual 2012 image shown above. The now rare collector's copy of the first OTM issue includes articles about computer image processing, telescope systems design, Saturn's rings, time conversions, hints & techniques, and the astronomer's vision. Although color ink issues are discontinued, OTM occasionally appears as a free online version or available through special offering.

Work is progressing to montage the motion of Venus across the face of the sun with the AT telescope and to utilize the Big Brain's new GT Telescope in space to study the nature of Venus' atmosphere as it filters solar radiation.

The Big Brain machine retains a complete image archive of the 2012 Venus Transit from two telescopes and three imaging cameras.

Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus,_2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus
http://www.transitofvenus.org/
http://venustransit.nasa.gov/2012/transit/index.php