3:30pm

Mere seconds after 3:17pm on Wednesday 7 May 2003 - just as predicted - a tiny, but incredibly well-defined and sharp, bite was taken out of the edge of the sun -- visible in the above image at about 4:00 o'clock. These images were taken through a 1000mm f.l. f/8.3 refractor onto 400ASA print film. The telescope had a damaged (and hastily repaired) "Thousand Oaks" mylar solar filter in front of the objective. Any colour in the image would be false, so I have reduced these photos to black & white. ('though I did weaken - and here is a colour shot - detail from the one below, and at a higher scan resolution.) The above image was taken at about 3:30pm, when I had overcome my awe enough to set up the camera.

A little after 5pm, the sun was overwhelmed by clouds, and the transit was lost to us. For a short while before it was lost entirely, the sun took on the eerie appearance of another solar system colossus - the planet Jupiter. Maybe significantly, sunset that evening was a magnificent crimson spectacle.