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On the 8th June 2004 the world had the opportunity to watch the transit of Venus across the Suns disk. As there had been over 122 years since the last transit I decided that it was more than worthy of taking the day off to watch and record. With my Meade LX200GPS 10 inch telescope and a couple of video cameras I was able to observe the Venus transit.

Here is a shot of the front lawn with the telescope connected to a computer, along with the other video cameras. The telescope was pointed directly at the Sun as I had a solar filter attached. The video cameras only had welding glasses of shade 12.

Located 35km south west of Canberra and sheltered in an isolated valley of the Murrumbidgee River is the Tidbindilla Tracking Station (now known as the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex). Here is DSS-43, a 70 meter dish constructed initially in 1976. It is the largest steerable parabolic antenna in the Southern Hemisphere. The antennas of the CDSCC continuously track spacecraft which include Voyager 2, Hubble and the Mars Rovers (Opportunity and Spirit).

Here we can see three antenna. Located on the left hand side and designated DSS-46 is a 26 meter dish. It was originally located at Honeysuckle Creek and moved to Tidbindilla in 1981. Located in the middle foreground is the YAGI array. The smaller dish on the right hand side is the CTF antenna.