The Transit Of Venus

[Polar Maritime]

VENUS PASSES MERCURY, APPROACHES THE SUN: Venus is approaching the sun in advance of the June 5th Transit of Venus. From here on Earth, the second planet has become difficult to see wrapped in bright sunlight. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, however, has no such trouble. SOHO's onboard coronagrah blocks the glare to reveal planets otherwise invisible:

A

24-hour movie shows that Mercury is exiting stage left as Venus plunges deeper into sunlight. Updated images may be found here.

Amateur astronomers who manage to locate Venus in broad daylight will find that the planet has turned into a

delightfully slender crescent. This is happening because Venus is turning its nightside to Earth, with only a sliver of reflected sunlight still shining over the planet's limb.

The crescent could soon become

a ring. When Venus is less than few degrees away from the sun, the horns of the crescent sometimes reach around and touch, producing a complete annulus. The effect is caused by particles in upper layers of Venus's atmosphere which scatter sunlight around the circumference of the planet. The ring is very difficult to observe, and often only black-belt astrophotographers are able to record the phenomenon.

Keep an eye on SpaceWeather's realtime photo gallery to see how Venus shape-shifts in the days ahead: Spaceweather.com

[Weather-history]

I fear we are not going to see much Wednesday dawn.

[Polar Maritime]

Agree, but at least there are lots of other ways of watching the transit even if the weather is not on our side

[Phil UK]

A Horizon special relating to this very topic is on BBC2 tomorrow night (Tuesday!) at 9pm.

It will at least be a break from all of this Jubilee humdrum.

Phil.

[Coast]

On June 5, 2012 at sunset on the East Coast of North America and earlier for other parts of the U.S., the planet Venus will make its final trek across the face of the sun as seen from Earth until the year 2117. The last time this event occurred was on June 8, 2004 when it was watched by millions of people across the world. Get prepared for this once in a lifetime event!

For over 100 years the main quest of astronomers was to pin down the distance between Earth and Sun (the Astronomical Unit), which would give them a key to the size of the solar system. Careful studies of the transit of Venus became the gold mine they would harvest to reveal this measure.

Live Webcast from Mauna Kea, Hawaii

On June 5, 2012, we will air a live 'remote' webcast from a mountainside Visitors Station site near the observatories in Hilo, Hawaii. This location will give a wonderful view of the entire transit with little chance of cloud cover to a worldwide audience.

Link: http://venustransit....sit/webcast.php

http://venustransit....v/2012/transit/

SAFE SOLAR VIEWING - HOW TO SEE THE TRANSIT FROM HOME

Assuming the weather is clear, you will be able to view the transit from home - but make sure you do it safely, with this advice from NASA:

Inexpensive eclipse shades have special safety filters that appear similar to sunglasses, but these filters permits safe viewing. However, with less than 24 hours to go, these may be tough to track down in time. If you have binoculars or telescopes, special solar filters are available. However, never ever use a telescope without a filter or look directly at the sun - or you will irreparably damage your eyesight. And NASA warns not to buy solar filters that attach to the eye-piece, as these are not always safe.

But if there is a telescope to hand, find a screen and project the sun onto it. This will provide a magnified view of the sun, and the clearest way of seeing the transit yourself - but find a safe surface to project onto, as this can be a fire risk.

Pinhole projectors have the advantage of being easy and inexpensive, although their view is unmagnified. For advice on how to make one, check out this page at Stanford.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2154732/Venus-transit-2012-times-Planets-transit-sun-visible-week.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[Polar Maritime]

map) will witness something like this:

TRANSIT OF VENUS: No one reading this will still be alive the next time Venus crosses the sun in Dec. 2117. That makes today special. On June 5th at 3:09 pm PDT, the second planet begins its historic 7-hour transit of the solar disk. Observers on parts of all seven continents (

Photo credit: David Finlay of Sydney, Australia (June 8, 2004).

The timing favors observers in the mid-Pacific where the sun is high overhead during the crossing. In the USA, the transit will be at its best around sunset. Creative photographers will have a field day imaging the swollen red sun "punctured" by the circular disk of Venus.

Stay tuned to Spaceweather.com's realtime gallery for constantly updated images of the transit. Another photo-stream of interest comes from the International Space Station where Don Pettit will be the first man in history to photograph a Venus transit from space. There are also many live webcasts of the transit from locations around the world: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6. (Submit more webcast links here.)

Spaceweather reader Eric Allen of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, has combined an image of today's sun with NASA's predicted transit path:

"I created this transit 'finder chart' to know where to look for first contact," explains Allen. "That is where the Mysterious Arc of Venus might appear."

Realtime Transit of Venus Photo Gallery

[Submit your photos] [NASA videos:

,

]

Observing Tip: Do not stare at the sun. Venus covers too little of the solar disk to block the blinding glare. Instead, use some type of

projection technique or a solar filter. A #14 welder's glass is a good choice. Many astronomy clubs will have solar telescopes set up to observe the event; contact your local club for details.

Transit of Venus Web Links:

• 
  NASA's Transit of Venus home page
  
• 
  
  The Mysterious Arc of Venus -- Science@NASA

  
  

• James Cook and the Transit of Venus -- Science@NASA
  
• Don Pettit and the Transit of Venus -- Science@NASA
  
• Live images from the ISS --whoa!
  

BEFORE THE TRANSIT: As Venus approaches the sun, it turns its nightside toward Earth. This turning transforms Venus into a rarely-seen thin ring of light. Lorenzo Comolli photographed the phenomenon from Tradate, Italy, on June 4th:

The effect is caused by particles in upper layers of Venus's atmosphere which scatter sunlight around the circumference of the planet. The ring is very difficult to observe, and often only black-belt astrophotographers are able to record the phenomenon.

"This picture was taken while Venus was a scant 2°17' from the sun's center, and it was very difficult to obtain due to the extreme proximity of the solar limb," says Comolli. "Extreme care was due to avoid the sun light entering the telescope. The extension of the crescent to form a nearly complete ring was remarkable on June 4, while nearly invisible on June 2. Another interesting observation is the limb brightening in Venus's southern hemisphere between 50° to 70° latitude. For confirmation, I obtained a second image using a W25 filter (red) that shows the presence of the brightening in the same way." Spaceweather.com

[Polar Maritime]

NASA / ESA's SOHO spacecraft is dong a fantastic job tracking Venus to ingress.

In just a little while SDO will start taking over and tracking Venus.

[toggerob]

Some 6 hours before the first signs of the Sun re-appearing begin, weather looks unfavourable but i'm hoping at least one or two cloud breaks can appear in time. Probobally desperation seeking in lol.

[Kain]

Looks like we could be viewing one of the webcasts from elsewhere

[lorenzo]

Got to love the Geeks at nasa

Dinner.....

[stewfox]

TRANSIT OF VENUS: No one reading this will still be alive the next time Venus crosses the sun in Dec. 2117. That makes today special. On June 5th at 3:09 pm PDT, the second planet begins its historic 7-hour transit of the solar disk. Observers on parts of all seven continents (

map) will witness something like this:

My Nephew is nearly 5 and he can nearly read all all of the above. He will only be 110 then so we will see.

[Kain]

110 while possible, its probably doubtfull, but heres hoping he does.

Anyway some life feed cams here.

http://sunearthday.gsfc.nasa.gov/webcasts/nasaedge/

[Kain]

First contact!

[Crepuscular Ray]

Blimey, it looks a lot bigger than I thought it would.

[toggerob]

1/20th the size of the Sun. Still praying for those clear skies now approaching the Welsh Coast to head this way in the next 3-4 hours.

[AderynCoch]

Prospects for clear skies look pretty slim.

I'm just glad we had great weather for the 2004 event, which was viewed from Britain in its entirety. I saw most of it from the Peace Gardens in Sheffield, where I came across Radio Sheffield and talked with them. I've still got the piece of card I used with holes in it for the binoculars (used to provide shade for the sun's image). It came out very well indeed on the pavement.

[toggerob]

Dawn starting to approach with some light in the sky, showing a cloud break or two with the cloud ceiling lifting to 2000ft as show on the EGCC METAR earlier on. Going to head out at 4am once it gets more lighter to see the ground, and chance it.

EDIT: no go for me now, even with these 'breaks' the increasing light shows a thicker layer above the breaks, now giving drizzle and reducing visibility. Sigh. At least there's always the SOHO/SDO images to look foward to in the coming hours.

Time for some coffee.

Edited June 6, 2012 by SNOW_JOKE

[lfcdude]

Cloudy that's a shame.... never will i see it again... unless i reach 128... i like a challenge... Some nice pics around on the web tho

Edited June 6, 2012 by lfcdude

[toggerob]

Came VERY close to seeing the last few minutes before final contact, but the clouds just couldn't stay parted for long enough and all I saw in the end was a teasing sunlight glow amongst the higher-altitude clouds. Had it cleared for just even 30 seconds more then no doubt there was a chance.

Had a good night watching the NASA live Feed from Hawaii in any case. Bring on 2016 for the Mercury transit.

[The PIT]

As per normal cloudy when ever an event like this occurs. The weather does seem to know when events like this are going to happen.

[Polar Maritime]

For the first time, a spacecraft has taken Hubble-quality photos of a Venus transit. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the event from geosyncronous orbit 36,000 km above Earth's surface. Click to view sample of the data SDO gathered:

SDO was able to track Venus across the full disk of the sun using a variety of white-light and extreme ultraviolet filters. The resulting movies are not only visually beautiful, but also full of scientific potential especially for researchers who wish to study the

strange dynamics of Venus's atmosphere.

The view from Earth wasn't bad either. "I knew I would not be able to take a better image of the transit than SDO, so I had to come up with something that SDO could not do, something that is seen only through Earth's atmosphere," says Mila Zinkova of San Francisco, California. "This something was, of course, a mirage."

"The upper frame shows Venus distorted by the reafractive action of Earth's atmosphere," she explains. "In the lower frame Venus is back to her normal self. I took both pictures using a Canon Powershot SH40." Spaceweather.com

Edited June 6, 2012 by Polar Maritime

[Stargazer]

Went up the road first thing today to get a clear horizon over the Thames - got very close to seeing the transit, but not quite. The sun came out of the clouds just before 5.30 this morning, but sadly the right part of the sun didn't appear until after the transit had finished

Edited June 6, 2012 by Stargazer

[Methuselah]

Nice pics, PM.

[Weather-history]

Oh well, thats it for 105 years.

[NL]

Oh well, thats it for 105 years.

Unless your hoping to visit Saturn before December 21st 2012 as a 'Transit of Venus' will be visible from there..!!!!