Tags:"The lines were a lot longer than I expected," said Greg
Townsend, "as an educator, I am really glad to see this." People
stood in lines and asked questions as our nearest planet moved
across the disc of the sun. There were many ways to see the
event, from looking directly using filtered glasses, through
lower-end telescopes projecting the sun on paper, and up to
high-end telescopes connected to computers to display the images
on screen. After some false starts, and with a little ingenuity
I was able to fashion a filter which worked for my telephoto
lens. While not as detailed as some of the telescope views, you
can clearly see Venus, the black dot at around the one-o'clock
position, a couple of huge sun spots around the middle, and some
clouds towards the bottom. Here is a slideshow of some of the
sights of the afternoon. For more information about future
events hosted by our local Astronomy Club, check out their page
at http://www.astroasheville.org And if you missed this, and are
oh, under 10 or so..