9. The Transit Venus transits the sun on June 5th, 2012 for the last time in our lifetimes. I had debated not even photographing this since I had thought that Venus would appear so small against the face of the sun that it would be relatively unphotogenic. After a bit of bickering with myself I went outside of Omaha and captured the transit just before sunset through a few wispy cirrus clouds. This image took every photographic tool I had to bring the exposure down to a manageable number. 6 stops of neutral density filters, f/36, ISO 100, and three pairs of sunglasses for me. I looked rad.
Partial lunar eclipse on May 20th as seen from western Iowa.