What a huge day for stargazing - in the daytime. More of my Transit of Venus photos.

The Transit of Venus proved a great education opportunity for me when I was asked by the teacher of one of my children if I'd like to talk to the class about "what is happening today."

Both children had take their eclipse glasses to school so friends could see Venus, and it all got going from there.

But of course our children first got to witness the ingress phase of the transit at home through the telescope while I was madly taking photos.

The quick visit to the school for one class took an interesting turn when the recess bell sounded and out the kids poured... More than two hours later, some 300 children had witnessed first hand something they may just live long enough to see again in 2117. But that lineup just never seemed to shrink...!

When I was their age, I was at Red Hill Primary School in Canberra and vividly remember the whole school cramming into the hall to witness Neil Armstrong's step upon the Moon. My memories are mainly of black and white blobs on the tiny television and teachers constantly shushing everyone. But I was there that day. I hope that some of today's children will also vividly remember the day Ainsley's dad came to school and let them see this once in a lifetime event - even if it is of far lesser significance than the one I experienced in 1969.

My photos of the ingress phase are here. The photos in this post are from the middle stages either side of the school visit, and some snatched through gaps in the clouds that unfortunately spoiled the egress phase.

The last two were taken with a pocket point-and-shoot mounted above the telescope eyepiece to allow full disc viewing not possible with the DSLR mounted to the telescope (with the eyepieces we have anyway). The third last one was taken direct with the DSLR camera with a borrowed 300mm lens, and a lot more cropping. All three were muddied by clouds.

The final contact was lost behind solid cloud.

All of my better photos can be viewed view my Google+ album.