No tears...
It was an historic event - one worth getting up for at 3:30am! Although at my location in Montreal I was only able to watch the last two hours of the transit of Venus across the Sun, I was looking forward to observing the third contact ( Venus' disk beginning to touch the Sun's limb). I was eager to see the famed "tear-drop effect", documented during the last transit of Venus in 1882, where the round disk of Venus seems to expand to a tear-shape as it approaches the edge of the Sun. However, despite a myriad of telescopes of all sizes at my observing location, no-one was able to record this effect. It's a mystery - did the astronomers of the last century all make errors in their observations? Have the Sun, Venus or the Earth's atmosphere changed subtly, so this effect is no longer visible?

From naked eye to Coronado
No matter! It was an amazing sight nevertheless. Even with the naked eye and a simple pair of solar-eclipse-viewing glasses I was able to spot Venus' disk on the face of the Sun. The best view of the transit was through my astronomy club's Coronado solar telescope, which gave beautiful. sharp views. I was even able to spot some solar prominences, but unfortunately sunspots were remarably absent, as we're in a lull of solar activity.

Sketching
While many of the about 25 astronomy enthusiatst who gathered for this event were set up with the ultimate high-end, high-tech equipment, I decided to go the low-tech way and make some simple colour pencil sketches throughout the event. Everyone was kind enough to let me peek through their scopes every so often, and allowed me to make a quick drawing.
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