Transit of Venus: June 2012

[magonia]

The transit of Venus will occur 5-6 June 2012 at 12.30 GMT.

The website below gives further details, and a simulation of this transition.

http://www.sunaeon.com/venustransit/

Sometimes you may get internal error on this link, just keep trying eventually it does work.

[magonia]

I will say the next transistion of Venus is going to occur on the 10-11 December 2117. So try not to miss this on.

Here is a link to see this event safely:

http://www.transitofvenus.org/june2012/eye-safety

Im sure it will be broadcast, maybe live as well on the TV or maybe certain astronomical internet sites.

[tmt]

Awesome!!! Here's an article:


Venus will kiss sun June 5

Rare celestial event comes once in a lifetime.


If by chance the skies are clear on the evening of June 5, skywatchers should be able to see Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, snuggling up to Helios, the personification of the sun.

In that moment of contact, a small black disc will be visible through telescopes that the University of Alberta, the TELUS Science centre and Parks Canada at Elk Island plan to have on hand for public viewing.

Then Venus, like Phaeton on his celestial chariot, will travel slowly across the sky in between the Earth and the sun before she arrives at the other end of the sphere, leaving behind for a second the same black teardrop that accompanied her arrival.

For some people, this tiny black disc floating across the Sun may not seem like anything to celebrate. But for astronomers like Doug Hube, professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, this will be one of the greatest shows on earth — the last chance for everyone to see an astronomical event that occurs in pairs eight years apart and only four times in 243 years.

“Before the last one in 2004, which could not be seen in Edmonton because the sun wasn’t yet over the horizon, the last two transits of Venus occurred in 1874 and 1882,” he says. “The next pairs won’t be seen until 2117 and 2125. So this is it. Those of us living now will never have another opportunity to witness it.

Celestial bodies such as the moon and planets are constantly shifting their positions in relation to fixed stars. But a close encounter between the sun and Venus is one of the rarest of astronomical events that we can see here on Earth.

Johannes Kepler, the mathematician who codified the laws of planetary motion, was the first to discover that both Mercury and Venus would transit the sun in 1631, Mercury in November and Venus in December. Although Kepler died before he got a chance to see either event, French astronomer Pierre Gasendi managed to witness the transit of Mercury that year. He missed the transit of Venus only because it was not visible from Europe.

Although Kepler predicted that another transit would not occur until the next century, a young British astronomer by the name of Jeremiah Horrocks deduced through his own calculations that a transit would happen in 1639. He and a friend, William Crabtree, are believed to be the only people to have witnessed the event.

“Nature was giving astronomers more than just a free show back in those early days,” Hube says. “By timing the transit of Venus, astronomers like Edmund Halley, of Halley’s Comet fame, believed that the distance between the Earth and the sun and, hence, the size of the solar system, could be measured.”

The trick, or trigonometry in this case, was only possible if simultaneous expeditions were made to the far corners of the world where the parallax effect on observers allows them to make the necessary calculations.

“A number of scientific expeditions were mounted, including a famous one to Tahiti by explorer James Cook,” Hube says. “But getting an accurate timing of the transits was made difficult by that mysterious black tear drop that occurs when the disk of Venus enters the sun’s disk and when Venus leaves the sun.”

From an observatory in St, Petersburg in 1761, Mikhail Vasilyevich viewed the black drop effect as the first real evidence that Venus had an atmosphere. While the planet’s atmosphere may contribute to the black drop effect, it is not the principal cause.

Others think that the black drop is simply the smearing that occurs when Venus touches the disk of the Sun.

Whatever the explanation, Cook’s voyage, which has been likened to a modern-day space mission by some, made the Transit of Venus famous — so famous, in fact, that in 1883 American composer John Philip Sousa composed a march to celebrate the one that occurred a year earlier.

Knowing beforehand that the Transit of Venus in 2004 could not be seen in Edmonton, Hube and his wife Joan made the trip to Luxor, Egypt to witness it.

Given the climate of the region, they had little fear that weather would sabotage their quest.

The Hubes, however, haven’t always been so lucky.

Two years ago, they travelled to the Hikeru atoll (a ringlike coral island) near Tahiti to see a total eclipse of the sun, only to be clouded out just one or two seconds before totality occurred.

“It happens,” says Hube allowing that he got only a very brief glimpse of the most recent transit of Mercury when he made a trip to the Galápagos Islands in November 2006.

The Hubes are planning to drive to Hay River in the Northwest Territories in June to view the Transit of Venus because the last hour will not be visible in Edmonton.

But if the forecast is for rain or cloud in Hay River, they plan to either go to the beach at Astontin Lake in Elk Island National Park where Parks Canada plans to set up a telescope or stay closer to home and share the experience with others at Ezio Faraone Park near their condo.

Hube cautions people not to attempt to observe the event on their own because it could result in permanent damage to the eye. He also advises against buying protective eyeware off the shelves.

“Most people will not have, nor know what constitutes, the proper equipment and, therefore, should be directed to observe from local observatories. Both the University’s campus observatory and the TELUS World of Science observing deck have dedicated solar telescopes that will be available to the general public.”

Note: The TELUS World of Science will have safe solar telescopes on-site for public viewing.

Timeline of the Transit of Venus as seen from Edmonton and most of Alberta:

•External Ingress: 4:05 p.m. MDT

•Internal Ingress: 4:22 p.m. MDT

•Greatest Transit: 7:26 p.m. MDT

•Sunset: 9:58 p.m. MDT (will not see Venus Egress from the Sun’s disk)

•Internal Egress: 10:27 p.m. MDT (not visible from Edmonton)

•External Egress: 10:45 p.m. MDT (not visible from Edmonton)


http://www.edmontonjournal.com/techn...864/story.html

[kerianthrope]

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