Me and Venus, 12h33m24s CEST
At 07h24m, when we first discovered that Venus has entered the sun's disk. Note Karin and Hans-Dieter Koschny on the left, who happened to visit us in this week. Richard and Julius are the kids in the front. The rest of the guys are ESTEC people.
Here you can see that people were interested - for the view through the H-alpha filter people waited for 10 minutes in line. Most of the people came to work between 08h30m and 09h30m - but the line lasted much longer.
To view the sun in H-alpha, the people had to use a black cloth to cover their head. This dramatically improved contrast.
In the blue shirt you see Mr. Winters, one of ESA's directors. Bernard Foing, Chief Scientist of the Research and Scientific Support Department, is on the right giving explanations. To the left ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers.
Johannes Riedinger enjoys the view of Venus (or our useage of a whiskey container as light baffle...)
A young astronomer - Wouter Schwehm, son of the Division Head of the Planetary Missions Division, and his mother Winifred. When asked "Have you seen Venus before", he replies with heavy nodding....
One of the members of the Astronomy Club Estec (ACE) observing through binoculars with foil filters.
The sun and the sky in the evening. We were lucky with the weather!