Transit of Venus at Sunrise from Leipzig

Kaz and I left Aarwangen in Switzerland at 8am on Tuesday 5th June, heading to Stuttgart to stay with our friend Ingmar nearby in Brackenheim. From there I had hoped to see the transit of Venus from a local winery but the weather was not looking good. The cloud forecasts said I needed to be a lot futher east to beat an approaching front. So I made a last minute booking (thank heavens for euro rail passes!) and headed to Leipzig in East Germany. Here’s what my day looked like:

• 7:30am Say goodbye to Fran and Roger in Aarwangen, Switzerland.
• 12:10pm Arrive in Stuttgart, pickup big heavy camera lens and even bigger, heavier tripod to hold it.
• 1:50pm Leave Stuttgart, change trains in Frankfurt.
• 8:00pm Arrive in Leipzig, catch S-bahn and check in to hotel.
• 9:00pm Walk down the road and scout out location I found online, the Monument to the Battle of Nations. Still cloudy.
• 10:30pm Finally get some dinner and then return to room and prepare and test gear for the early sunrise.
• 1:00am Exhausted, I lay in bed for two and half hours but could not sleep anyway. Some clear sky overhead.
• 3:30am Get up, hike with 25kg of cameras, lenses and tripods down the road.
• 4:00am Arrive at the Monument and find a position on the side high enough to see sunrise.
• 4:50am Sunrise begins and I can just see the sun through some high clouds on the horizon. Camera snaps away madly and there is Venus too!
• 5:20am Two german guys arrived with beer and cigarretes, having walked 3km to see the transit. Not sure what they were hoping to see without filters! I share the view through the camera and my solar filters.
• 6:00am High cloud too thick now to see the last hour of the transit so I pack up and head back to hotel.
• 7:00am Breakfast for 20 minutes and then download photos and send to Solent syndication agent in the UK.
• 8:00am Checkout and head to Leipzig station for train back to Stuttgart.
• 2:00pm Arrive in Stuttgart (cloudy and raining) and return camera lens and (heavy) tripod to Delight Rental Services. Glad to get all that off my back!
• 4:30pm Meet Kaz and Ingmar in Brackenheim
• 8:00pm Grill Party (bbq) with friends in Sindsheim
• 11:00pm Finally crawl into bed after a crazy 40 hours of travelling and no sleep!

I have had many crazy adventures chasing astronomy events for photography but this was right up there! Certainly I got a little lucky, especially since it was only clear in Leipzig for just a few hours, but of course I did everything I possibly could to increase my chances. Weather forecasts can be amazing sometimes!

These are rare events – the next transit of Venus is not until December 2117. So now when people ask where I was for the transit of Venus in 2012 I will say I was perched on the side of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, the Monument to the Battle of Nations, in Leipzig.