Starship Asterisk*

Well, that would explain why it sounded almost nothing like Requiem. I've heard remixed classical music and compared it to the original and not been able to find any similarities even though others could. Figured it was a shortcoming on my behalf rather than a misattribution.

The distortions you folks are seeing (trabsparency) is an abeeration caused by,now get this,Einstien's Lense. The gravity of Venus is warping spacetime around the planet and thereby bending the light passing near enough. Some of that light comes at your left eye and some at your right from opposing sides of the planet so your brain interprets it as semi transparent .Look closely at that video once more.In the shots where the sun is highly detailed behind Venus,there is a distinct pucker around the whole disc.You will see it distort the sun's features in the bacground as it moves.They twist and warp around it. It's a way cool effect and also a handy way to exactly determin the mass of the planet.
Neeto huh.

Steve AKA Eye wrote:The distortions you folks are seeing (trabsparency) is an abeeration caused by,now get this,Einstien's Lense.

That is incorrect. What appears to be transparency is an effect of the instruments used to capture the image. See here and here for more information.

Steve,
While the mass of Venus undoubtedly can "warp spacetime" the effect will be far too small to distort the image of the Sun.
What you may be thinking of is the first demonstration in 1919 of General Relativity's ability to 'bend light', when Eddington used the solar eclipse of that year to measure the effect of the Sun's mass on light from a more distant star. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_g ... by_the_Sun

Einstein's Lens is another way to describe gravitational lensing, seen when a whole galaxy distorts light from a source beyond to show images of the object that we could not otherwise see. You see (!): http://phys.org/news66492748.html

I say that Venus' mass can warp spacetime. Although we have no proof of that, the Gravity Probe B project has shown, by orbiting a probe around the Earth, that this is true for that planet's mass . But that was at the limit of currnent technology, and required the measurement of very small changes indeed, far less than the light beam distortion that would replicate the effetcs seen on the transit video. See: http://einstein.stanford.edu/

Hope that's of interest - or even helpful!
John