last night i'd been watching online the start of the transit of venus across the face of the sun from live norwegian webcams. the plan was i'd wake up at the crack of dawn (about 5am) and head up to alewife, where i'd go to the top of the parking garage and get a good look at the sun.

venusian astrology on portuguese television

so of course i went to bed at 2am, and 3 hours later i couldn't wake up, so i revised my plan and decided 6am would be better, but came 6am, i looked out my window and saw that it was cloudy, so i figured i couldn't see anything anyway so decided to sleep through the rest of the transit. however, when i opened my eyes around 6:30 i saw sunlight filtering through the cracks of the venetian blinds,

it was cloudy in cambridge...

so on a whim i got out of bed and tried to see if i could see the sun from my place in cambridge (which i didn't think would be possible, so many obstructions around). to my surprise, from the living room i could see the sun in plain sight! i immediately put on my eclipse glasses. i wasn't quite sure what i was seeing, but almost from instinct i grabbed my camera, screwed on the telescopic lens, and tried to take some photos. just at that moment clouds rolled across the sun. i waited. i went online to verify what i'd saw earlier, and noticed it didn't match

view from norway (6:48 EST)

(so what i thought to be venus probably wasn't, but there was another spot on the sun that i remembered seeing, and that probably was it, bear in mind i was looking through a window and through some tree branches). i was surprised there was very little coverage of it on the news, other than some portuguese channel featuring a woman explaining an astrology chart. i waited some more. the clouds were being uncooperative, and i even went outside to see if i could see a break. there would be no breaks, and by 7:25 the transit would be over, nothing more to see until 2012, when venus rolls across the sun once again.

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