Transit of Venus! US Space & Rocket Center - Smarter Every Day 54

Hey, it's me Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. Something cool happened on the way home from work today: Venus passed in front of the sun. Well, between us and the sun, I guess technically. I had this little camera with me, and I went to the US Space and Rocket Centre. There were people there from all over, and they had their telescopes and all these different gadgets and gizmos set up so they could see the sun without burning their eyes. It was pretty awesome.

And I assume if you're a subscriber to Smarter Every Day, you knew about this already and you did that too. So if you would, leave me a video response to this video and tell me, or show me better yet, how you did it, so we have all this big compilation of data in one spot. Anyway, so I'll show you what I saw, and then after the fact, I'll tell you why the transit of Venus is important.

OK, so you might laugh at the guy with the welding hood, but he can actually see it better than most people here, so it's pretty smart. See? Yep, there it is. Pretty cool.

You know, even if you stack like six pairs of sunglasses on top of each other, you can't stare at the sun with that—yeah—because it's got invisible infrared and ultraviolet light that still goes through the glasses.

(Destin) That's pretty awesome, did you build this yourself? Are you with the von Braun Astronomical Society?

-I am.

Pretty awesome man. So why are you not looking through your telescope? Why are you letting other people do it?

-Well I can look through it any time, right? These guys don't have one, so it's nice to share.

(Destin) Oh yeah, but this is the transit of Venus!

-It is.

(Destin) The one time you want to use your telescope, you're letting other people do it?

-That's right.

(Destin) That's awesome man. Way to give back. Give us a bump. So you aligned with the sun, the plane that the sun passes across the sky.

-Well, you're aligning the center of rotation, with the... you're making that parallel to the Earth's center of rotation. And then you rotate your base plate up in the same latitude that we're in, so now this is rotating in one axis, just like the earth.

(Destin) That's awesome.

This is a pretty good shot of you with the Saturn 5 in the background. Makes you look like some kind of space hero. Just letting you know.

So usually, you have to pick three heavenly bodies, right? But this time you only had to do two?

It's really just the one.

(Destin) It's awesome. Is it OK if I put this up here?

-Back a little bit. Oh, there we are. So that's it. Can't really see it with this little camera. Oh, there it is. There it is. But you're having to track it manually, right? But it's pretty easy because of your mount, right?

-Well yeah. I'm doing it... I have another mount I could've, but if anybody kicks it or moves it, then I've got to realign it. It'd take 15 minutes of messing around. This way, hey, it's quick and dirty. The top there is sort of a triangle of sunspots or magnetic storms on the sun.

(Destin) Oh, that's awesome. They're inspiring the next generation of space explorers. And of course, NASA has to one-up everybody and show up with a trailer that you can see a real-time display. Solar flares, the whole bit. Just check it out.

Oh, glare is killing us. You see that?

(Destin) Now, what are you using here?

-I am using a parabolic telescope.

Um. I did this for a project on romanticism, where I was focusing on William Herschel, who developed the first parabolic telescopes, using parabolic mirrors.

(Destin) Wait a second, you're from Alabama though, right?

-I am from Alabama.

Well, you're supposed to be a stupid redneck. Why are you doing this?

-Because, I like, I like space.

(Destin) You like space? That's awesome.

(bystander) By the way, he is a stupid redneck.

(Destin) Oh, he is a stupid redneck? Just so you know, I do a YouTube show, and

-I know, I'm subscribed to you.

(Destin) Oh really?

-Yes. Nice to meet you, Destin.

Nice to meet you, Paul.

-This is a reflecting telescope, with an F8 lens, focal length of about 48 inches, made out of PVC pipe. I ground the lens myself, found the focal length.

(Destin) Wait, what did you grind the lens with, like toothpaste or something?

-Basically, yeah. It's a silicone oxide, cerium oxide, all kinds of different stuff.

(Destin) Can I block your lens for a second?

-Go ahead.

(Destin) Alright, so sunlight's going in, way back down there, I'm getting blind. So just be honest with me. Did you do some kind of fist pump or something when you finally focused it?

-Oh, I was very happy.

-I really did, I fist-pumped.

(Destin) Nice. Nice to meet you, man.

-Can you look yet?

-Not really.

-You can try.

(Destin) Alright. I saw a guy over there with a piece of PVC; I think he's doing better than you guys.

-Yeah, I know.

-He probably is.

OK, so now that we've talked about how to observe the Venus transit, who cares? Why is it important? Well, it's extremely important. So important, in fact, in the 1700s, Captain Cook left Britain, and he went all the way down, through the Atlantic Ocean, around South America, and all the way over here to this little island called Tahiti.

Now the point of Tahiti is that its latitude was different from Britain, so that you could make the observation from two separate locations and do some calculations. Unfortunately, today, we don't have data from a different latitude.

-Yeah, you do.

Who said that?

-Destin, it's me, Derek.

Oh, what's up? Where you...

-I'm in your armpit.

Oh, there you are. Australia, yeah, the armpit of the world. What's up, Derek?

-Hey, that's something coming from a guy who lives in Alabama. [laugh] Granted.

What's going on? What's up with the shades?

-Well, I'm still checking out the transit of Venus. It's still happening down here. I want to talk about parallax and how we can use different latitudes to figure out the distance to the sun.

(Destin) Fantastic, so go ahead, you gonna explain it here?

-No, no, it's too much for this channel.

-But uh, if you click on my face, I'll take you to the good stuff.

Oh man, this just got awesome. It's like back in Captain Cook's day, only we don't have to send a guy years earlier to get somewhere to make the observation because he's already there via the internet.

-On the beard.

So go click Derek's face, and we'll learn a little bit about what these observations are for.

-On the beard, that's the best part. [laugh]

-Alright, let's do it. Follow me.

Go on! Click his face!

Yeah, yeah. Click here.

On the beard.

[ Captions by Andrew Jackson ]