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When Venus Rises with the Sun

Explanation: This dramatic telephoto view across the Black Sea on June 6 finds Venus rising with the Sun, the planet in silhouette against a ruddy and ragged solar disk. Of course, the reddened light is due to scattering in planet Earth's atmosphere and the rare transit of Venus didn't influence the strangely shaped and distorted Sun. In fact, seeing the Sun in the shape of an Etruscan Vase is relatively common, especially compared to Venus transits. At sunset and sunrise, the effects of atmospheric refraction enhanced by long, low, sight lines and strong atmospheric temperature gradients produce the visual distortions and mirages. That situation is often favored by a sea horizon.

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The Sun looks more like a hot-air balloon instead of an Etruscan vase. Cool image though!

There seems to be a faint spot below Venus and a little bit to the right. Any ideas what this is? I don't think the distortion of the sun is extreme enough for Venus to appear twice because it is not directly underneath.
The only thing I can think of is dust on the mirror inside the camera (assuming SLR).

That will be sunspots

Wow! I was looking for the "black drop effect" when Venus touched the limb of the Sun, but didn't see it. But Emil, you gave us the "red drop effect" instead!

Ann

Those waves look a little odd, they seem to be uniformly choppy all the way to the horizon. Never seen a horizon with waves that big on it before, is that common for the black sea?

Nice photo!

Phoenix729 wrote:Those waves look a little odd, they seem to be uniformly choppy all the way to the horizon. Never seen a horizon with waves that big on it before, is that common for the black sea?

Most large bodies of water are uniformly choppy, seen or unseen. In this case it appears the telescopic lens has made them clearly visible.

I like that Venus was in the center of the sun as the "vase" effect was visible ~~ great symetry!

Thanks everybody for the kind comments!
Ann, I love your idea for the "red drop effect". I think this should become the official name of this effect
It was really a good piece of fortune that I could catch the rising Sun in a gap between the clouds. There weren't many (gaps) .

Phoenix729 wrote:
Those waves look a little odd, they seem to be uniformly choppy all the way to the horizon. Never seen a horizon with waves that big on it before, is that common for the black sea?

I think this is a normal look with this focal lenght (600mm). For example here is a photo with the same setup taken on the Mediterranean Sea coast (Tel Aviv). The waves look almost in the same way: Best regards, Emil

Hi at all! Nice to meet all of you,i'm new here and i wanna say that i saw a lot of GREAT WORKS, differents from the mass (write venus transit on flickr ) and originals, with something else in the picture beyond Sun & Venus.

Infact I'm totally not agree with APOD OF 8 June 2012
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120608.html With al respect the author,but here there are better works!

And if i can broke a spear in my favour,personally i did the same photo but really better for colors and contents... CREDITS: Niki Giada, Italy
If they really had to show a picture with an incredible optical effect and nice colors ... I would say that there are more here (But I know, Venus does not look just right ...)

Great picture Emil!