The Last Transit of Venus for the Century

Here are some pictures of the last transit of Venus for this century. The next transit will be in 2117, which I guess we all won't be around to catch it.

Venus appears as a shadow (the beauty spot - a.k.a. the Cindy Crawford/Marilyn Monroe mole) on the left (about 9 o'clock) of the Sun's disk. Taken with a Sony DSC point and shoot, two pieces of DIN10 welder's glass, a cardboard shield and Adobe Photoshopped to remove the green cast.

Without colour correction, the welder's glass gives the image a strong green cast. The shadow of Venus is seen on the left hand side of the solar disk. This image was captured post maximum contact, at around 10am local time.

The path taken on the solar disk is a curved trajectory, because as the sun moves through the sky, the solar disk rotates with respect to the horizon. Hence the apparent trajectory taken by Venus across the solar disk is a curve and would be different depending on the location that you are viewing from. To look at what the trajectory looks like, you can go to http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/where-when/venus-curved-trajectory/ and use the flash applet provided by www.sunaeon.com to see the trajectory from your location.

An overlay of combined images taken during the transit of Venus over that of the modeled track given by www.sunaeon.com that was accessed from http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/where-when/venus-curved-trajectory/ - the combined series of images shows the 'spot' is taking a curved trajectory over the solar disk as modeled for viewing from Kuala Lumpur.

Below are a few pictures extracted from the site mentioned above to illustrate how the observed trajectory is different at different localities.

The apparent transit trajectory for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - this imaged was superimposed with images of taken during the transit and made into the image above this.

The apparent transit trajectory for Adelaide, South Australia.

The apparent transit trajectory for Osaka, Japan.

The apparent transit trajectory for Beijing, China - similar to the view from Osaka.

The apparent trajectory for Fairbanks, Alaska.

The apparent trajectory for Los Angeles.

If you like to see how the trajectory of Venus appears in other places, try using the flash object below. You can click on the Trajectory button to draw the calculated trajectory and change the location by clicking on the map.

Where there's smoke...

On this bright Sunday morning, at around 9.30am, there was a thick plume of smoke coming from somewhere in the direction of KL that was visible from my balcony. That got the whole household up watching. There was also a helicopter circling around, though it was too far away to see any distinguishing markings on the helicopter. From the picture, the smoke plume appeared to stretch across KL over KL Tower and KLCC. The smoke died down in about an hour’s time. Where there's smoke, there's fire...Must remember to check tomorrow's papers to see if the fire is reported and find out where is the actual location of the fire.

Confucius says: Never start a fire just to attract a fireman, the relationship will go up in smoke. The plume of smoke that stretched across the KL city skyline.

UPDATE - The fire is at Jalan Peel, Kuala Lumpur and caused more than 100 people to be left homeless. A total of 29 squatter houses were destroyed in the fire. Not too sure if these squatters were part of the 49 squatters along Jalan Peel that were handed eviction notice late last year for the Klang Valley MRT project.

The Cape Jasmine - Gardenia jasminoides

One of the fragrant flowers that one should have in the garden is Gardenia jasminoides. With glossy dark green leaves and dark greyish-brown bark, this handsome plant produces either single or double-petaled blooms that have a lovely scent. Gardenia jasminoides or Cape Jasmine has many synonyms including G. augusta or G. florida and this plant is known as 栀子花/梔子花 in Chinese.

A Gardenia jasminoides flower.

The flowers are white, or off-white that may turn light yellow as the blooms age. Cultivars with blooms that turn yellow rapidly exist, such as ‘Aurea’ or ‘Golden Magic’, thus giving the effect of a yellow gardenia. Once the blooms are spent, they look like wads of tissue paper that had been thrown onto the plant. I did have a friend in university who where puzzled as to why students are so un-civic minded and were throwing used tissue paper on the gardenia hedge that was planted around the faculty building. Only when pointed out that those were the withered blooms of Gardenia jasminoides did she realised what it was.

As the flowers of Gardenia jasminoides age, the petals flatten out and eventually look like a wad of white/off-white tissue paper stuck on the plant.

After the blooms, small oval-shaped blooms may follow, and this fruit is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine as well as to extract a usable yellow dye for food and clothing from it. The yellow colouring extracted from Gardenia fruits is called Gardenia yellow and can be used to colour ice-creams, candies and jellies. Besides saffron, Gardenia fruits represent another rich natural source of crocin, a carotenoid responsible for the intense orange colour of saffron.

The white flowers of Gardenia jaminoides contrast sharply with the dark glossy leaves.

I got the Gardenia as a discarded trimming of the hedge at the university. When the cutting has rooted, I left the pot on the garden (this was in Kajang, and I had a small garden on the front yard). The roots grew through the pot and the pot plant eventually became a tree that birds and even bees made nest in! From this tree, I gave cuttings to several people. Cuttings, especially younger ones, are easy to strike. The plant likes moisture but hates to have ‘wet feet’. Any water-logging (including putting a tray to catch water beneath the pot) would eventually result in root rot and death of the plant.

A pair of Yellow-vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier) fledgling perched in the cover of a huge Gardenia jasminoides bush. They are perched on a mulberry branch under the cover of the Gardenia leaves.

As Gardenia requires acidic soil, growing Gardenia in soil with high pH would result in chlorosis of the leaves. This is the result of impaired micronutrient, especially iron are impaired under high soil pH. Gardenias love light and usually filtered sunlight would suffice, but established plants can take full sunlight. My old Gardenia ‘tree’ gets a full day’s sun (east – west orientation) and the bush at J & A’s balcony also receives full sunlight. As long as there is enough moisture, a matured shrub would be very happy with as much sunlight as it can get.

The scent of Gardenia jasminoides flowers, despite smelling very strong, does not travel far unlike those of Jasminum sambac. Hence to smell the flowers, you probably got to cut the blooms and bring it in, whereas the smell of Jasmine travels with the breeze well, and leaving a balcony door open would suffice.