Astrovideo: Klingon Bird of Prey Attacks Venus!

Bird of Prey at Venus during Transit of 2012. Credit: John Chumack

“Okay, so it’s not a Klingon War Bird,” admits astrophotographer John Chumack, but it is a Sonoran Desert Bird of Prey swooping by Venus’ location in the sky during its transit across the face of the Sun in June 2012. And it is “freakin’ cool,” just as John describes it on Flickr.

John said he saw the “attack” live during his time on Kitt Peak in Arizona for the Transit of Venus observations, but just recently located and processed the footage. “The Sun was low to the horizon by this time…which accounts for the distorted looking Venus… Goes to show, you never know what will enter your field of view while imaging!”

The video of the event is below:

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Thanks to John for sharing his image; see more of his work at his website, Galactic Images or his Flickr page.

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/