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J. M. Pasachoff (Williams Col.-Hopkins Obs.), G. Schneider (Steward Obs.-U. Arizona), B. A. Babcock (Williams Col.-Sci. Ctr.), D. L. Butts, J. W. Gangestad, O. W. Westbrook, A. R. Cordova (Williams Col.), K. Gaydosh (Bryn Mawr Col./KNAC), J. H. Seiradakis (U. Thessaloniki)
We report on a coordinated program of CCD observations of the transit of Venus of 8 June 2004 made with NASA's Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) spacecraft and with ground-based observations from Greece (including the first two contacts) and the U.S. (the last two contacts). We observed in white light, with special attention to imaging Venus's atmosphere at ingress and egress and to the presence and formation of the black-drop effect at second and third contacts. We analyze the data in terms of the telescope's point-spread function, the solar limb darkening (which we previously showed to have a role in the black-drop effect for a transit of Mercury), and seeing effects from the terrestrial atmosphere. Our TRACE data have a 7-s cadence at uncompressed data transmission and higher for compressed data, both over the 20-min ingress and egress phases.
Our expedition was supported by a grant from the Committee for Research and Exploration of the National Geographic Society. We thank Sigma Xi for additional student support.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #4
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.