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Last night (June 5th, 2012), was the transit of Venus across the sun. The next such transit will be visible from Earth in 2125. During the transit, the combined motions of the two planets makes it look like Venus is crossing across the entire surface of the Sun. Venus appears as a small black circle.
So, a pretty rare event. I dug out my 27 year old telescope, buried in the garage (Houston smog and light pollution makes a telescope a little useless) and set it up in the middle of the street. It was pretty easy to line the telescope up with the sun and then project the image onto a board. I watched Venus slowly move across the sun for about an hour until the sun set below the neighbor’s trees. For some truly amazing pictures and video of the transit, visit the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s Venus Transit page, here. Astronaut, Don Pettit, currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS), took about 700 pictures of the transit and they are viewable on a Flickr page, here. |
