3:00pm Sunday 17th June 2012
A GROUP of amateur astronomers gathered at the Rollright Stones to capture a once-in-a-lifetime event.
They came to witness the transit of Venus – when the planet crosses the face of the sun – a rare celestial phenomenon which will not be seen again for 105 years.
Armed with 14 telescopes, members of the Chipping Norton Amateur Astronomy Group assembled in the early hours of Wednesday last week to record the event.
Patience prevailed and many of the stargazers got lucky – capturing the rare phenomenon on camera from the Kings Stone field.
Chairman Robin Smitten said the weather was so bad when he got up he could have gone back to bed.
“The skies broke just in time to see the transit before it finished,” he said. “We were one of the lucky ones.
“We will never see it again from the surface of the earth.
What we’re aiming to do now is to get the pictures and thoughts of everybody who was there and capture it like a time capsule.” A record will be kept at Chipping Norton Museum for the next group of astronomers – in 2117 – to see.
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