* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Transit of Venus 2012

Blobrana · L

Transit of Venus a rare event

The UW-Madison Astronomy Department's Space Place and Washburn Observatory have planned events that, weather permitting on June 5, will make viewing the transit easy and safe, according to Jim Lattis, Space Place director, who cautions that improper viewing equipment or technique can cause eye damage.
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Blobrana · L

VENUS TRANSIT MONITOR 2012

White Light image taken from Svalbard today

H-ALPHA realtime feed

WHITE LIGHT realtime feed

Telescope realtime feed

Source

Blobrana · L

See It Now or Wait until 2117

The University of Utah's Natural History Museum of Utah - in partnership with the Salt Lake Astronomical Society and the university's Department of Physics and Astronomy - will host public viewing opportunities and hands-on activities and lectures on June 4 and June 5. Members of the media are invited to cover the events.
An excellent place to view the transit will be at the Natural History Museum of Utah, where 14 telescopes of varying sizes and solar viewing glasses will be available to visitors.
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Blobrana · L

Webcast gives transit of Venus view

People in the UK will be able to follow the entire journey of the planet Venus across the Sun through a webcast streaming video and images from telescopes around the world.
The journey, known as a transit, will only be visible from Britain after sunrise on 6 June 2012 just as the planet, visible as a dark spot, is nearing the end of its crossing. However, thanks to the GLORIA (GLObal Robotic-telescope Intelligent Array) project, armchair astronomers in the UK will be able to follow the transit online from 11pm BST on the 5 June.
The webcast will be available on the GLORIA website.
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Blobrana · L

To view the disk of Venus requires only a modest telescope with a proper visual solar filter.

Those on a budget can fashion a telescope solar filter from cheap eclipse sunglasses sold at many astronomy stores. Simply remount the cardboard holder with the mylar filter onto a larger cardboard disk or box. The telescope will effectively be stopped down to ~30mm, but this is still enough to see the disk of Venus and any sunspots.

Loose A4 DIY solar filter sheets (namely Baader solar film) can also be bought for not much more.

To capture the event any PC webcam can be used. The webcam front lens just has to be removed and the webcam fitted (with sticky tape, glue, or commercial webcam adaptors) onto the telescope.

Blobrana · L

The next transit of Venus will occur on 2012 June 06. This transit will be visible from the Pacific, Australasian and Eastern Asia. During the next six hours 10 minutes , Venus gradually traverses the Northern Hemisphere , at solar latitude of about +45 degrees, of the solar disk; at a relative angular rate of approximately 4 arc-min/hr. Mid-transit will be at 01h 28m. At contact III, the planet reaches the opposite limb (known as egress, contacts I and II define the phase called ingress). The transit ends at contact IV, at about 04h 54m GMT.
By the way, the next pair of Venus transits occurs over a century from now on 2117 Dec 11 and 2125 Dec 08.

Images from the 2004 Venus transit

QUINNER · New

Great news. The North Halton Astronomy Club recently donated a telescope to the Halton Hills Library. In celebration of the TRANSIT OF VENUS, the club will be hosting the event. We plan on setting up several Solar scopes and are inviting the public to witness the event. This first donation is one in a series of events planned by the club.

Blobrana · L

Awareness camp for Venus' transit across Sun

The Breakthrough Society, a national organisation working towards popularising science, conducted an educational awareness program on the transit of Venus across the Sun to take place on June 6 at the Marina Beach in the city on Sunday. The event was organised to spread awareness of the historical and the scientific significance of the astronomical event.
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Blobrana · L

Orbiting Frog Astronomy

In June 2012 people all over the world will watch the planet Venus transit across the Sun. Venus will pass directly between the Earth and Sun on the night of June 5th and the morning of June 6th. This historic event can be seen, at least partly, from many parts of the world and will not happen again for 105 years! I'm part of a collaboration which, amongst other things, is broadcasting this once-in-a-lifetime event live, via the web. Because of this connection and others (our Planet Hunters project at the Zooniverse is all about planets transiting in front of stars) I've been reviewing aspects of the event and thought I'd summarise some of it here.
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