Venus through the clouds

Whilst clouds may have obscured the transit of Venus for many in the UK they did help Andrew Steele get this stunning photo from Oxford’s Port Meadow.

Venus is visible as the dark spot at the extreme right on the face of the Sun.

Andrew, from Oxford University's Department of Physics, told me:

‘The shots were taken with a normal digital SLR and a fairly long lens (70–200 mm plus a 1.7x teleconverter), but nothing more complex than that. You should of course never look at the Sun with the naked eye, especially through a camera or telescope, but on this occasion the thick clouds had a silver lining and protected me - and, as a bonus, made the shot a lot more atmospheric too!’