Venus Transits The Sun--Jun 5/6, 2012

[Darrell]

Venus will transit the face of the Sun on June 5 (the 6th if you're on the other side of the i'natl date line). It's a rather rare event, and it happens in pairs--the last one happened in 2004, but our side of Earth was facing away at the time. It will not happen again for over 100 years; the complete cycle takes over 200 years to repeat. Transits of Venus were once of major scientific interest--they helped astronomers determine the size of our solar system. Now, at least it's something interesting to watch. You should practice safe viewing, as with a solar eclipse--use eclipse glasses or other solar filters. A #14 welding glass is safe, anything lighter (#10, etc.) is not. You can learn more here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus,_2012

You can learn viewing details for your area here:

http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/where-when/ ... sit-times/

It will happen in the afternoon/until after sunset as seen from the US. The western US is favored.

[308Mike]

THANKS for the heads-up!! Much appreciated!

We'll be seeing what kind of a view we can get from here in San Diego. I might be able to get our borrowed Celestron set up before it happens and demonstrate to my wife how to use it to view sun spots/activities (I'm pretty sure it has a white-painted sun reflector plate in the box).

[JAG2955]

Wife and I watched it today. Venus was near the 1 o'clock position on the sun. We used her welder's mask.

Really, it made me feel like our solar system is very small.

[Darrell]

Fighting some high thin clouds/haze here, with the occasional occluding cloud, but managed to view first and second contact. Did not see the "black drop" effect or atmospheric ring near second contact. The neighbor came over and got a good look or three. There are also several sunspot groups visible on the face of the sun.

Please be careful out there--using a welding mask is not safe unless you have a #14 glass in it.

[Cybrludite]

Missed it due to weather. I'll have to catch it the next time around.