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Venus Transit Finished
KjetilK writes "Venus is just about to cross the solar disc.
Direct from the control room in the Frogner Park in Oslo, I'm pleased to inform you that we have a great webcast, and as far as we know, it is the only webcast that still stands upright... Slashdotters, do your worst! ;-) A Venus transit is one of the most unique astronomical events in our time, in fact, no living person has witnessed it before today. And today, more people have seen it from the park where I'm sitting that in the rest of human history. Also, it had tremendous importance for the development of science, as it gave the first absolute measurements of distances in the solar system. Especially in 1769, a transit made science take huge leaps forward. And BTW, New Zealand and Australia were 'discovered' in the process" Some nice photos from the UK, photos from vt-2004.org, and if you missed it, it'll be eight short years till you can try again.
Snippet:
How transits can determine distances:
Hmmm.
Well, if you would read the Science section, you would see it did indeed get posted a while ago.
/. ...
Though, even if it didn't, there are websites other than
There once was a transit of Venus...
If you were lucky, you may have been able to see the ISS transit the sun at the same time. Details on Thomas Fly's site: http://iss-transit.sourceforge.net/IssVenusTransit .html
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
sounded pretty neat, they have a good write up here Since I missed it glad someone took some pictures!
*narf!*
Possibly because the best place to observe this wasn't in the US? The BBC and ITV having being flogging this for a few days so we all knew about it.
Boring Old Fart (40, married, 3 kids...er no...make that 49, married, 3 grown up kids...it's been a long time)
Leigons of small black dots protested the international frenzy over Venus' transit across the Sun by refusing to move across larger, white dots. "We're not getting fair and equal attention!" claimed Period.
Venus is just about to cross the solar disc
Of course, that was the case when submitted, but the editors thought it was best to wait until its over before putting it on the frontpage.
So the way it works is... when someone asks to slashdot a webcast, wait til its over to put it on the front page, but when an anonymous poster points to an IP (not a domain), slashdot the hell outta it.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Just wanna share with you folks some pics I took using nothing but the most basic equipment, including using a piece of Epson inkjet paper for projecting the image...
www.rexguo.com - Technologist + Designer
I can still see it everytime I close my eyes...
And as far as I know, no reports of ignorant and supestitious lunatics predicting the end of the world. This is progress. I hope...
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I wasnt aware this was happening until I work this morning and switched on the news.
;o)
It amuses me that any channel that covers these kind of events spends 2% of their times covering the basics of astronomy and why this event is quite rare.
The other 98% is spent explaining the danger of staring directly at the sun.
Then... I go to the park to eat my lunch in the sunshine (rare in the UK) only to see hoards of people doing exactly this (or thinking that cheap sunglasses will protect them). Worse is mothers trying to show their kids ("Mummy, mummy, I cant see anything... and my eyes hurt"... "Just keep looking sweety... you will see it when your eyes lose sensativity!").
So a further warning to slashdotters...
Dont stare directly at the sun...
Just get someone else to do it and descibe it to you
Why do all these pictures remind me of her ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Recording the transit of Venus was the official reason for Cooks voyage to Tahiti - he carried precise scientific instruments to record it, as recording it from different locations around the world would provide valuable information.
Once this was done, Cook opened a secret envelope which contained the real reason for his voyage - to discover the great unknown land mass in the south (Australia) and claim it for England.
A few years ago I bought a book that mapped all of the voyages that Cook had undertaken. It also showed copies of all the maps that he had with him when he went on his voyage of "discovery" when he visited Oz in 1770.
..
Cook knew there was a continent there from all of those maps and also from the accounts of all the other sailors that had been tooling around the area during the previous century. So he never really discovered it per se, more just claimed it for England. In fact as he was running around the Sydney area, the Frenchman La Perouse was also in the same area at the same time.
If anything the discovery of Oz by westerners should be credited to the Dutch, who ran into the west coast when they forgot to turn left on their trips around South Africa, and up to the East Indies. Google for Dirk Hartog and the silver plate he nailed to a tree well before Cook was a glimmer in his fathers eye. If the areas the Dutch had seen had a been a little bit more fertile, instead of bordering on major desert, then they might have wanted to spend a bit more time there. But when you are colonising sort of chap, a very dry west coast is not really all that appealing.
Of course if you want true discovery you have to go back to Aborigines who have been here for more than 40,000 years. And before you discount them as primative stone age relics, have a read of Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, and consider that their society was STABLE for 10s of THOUSANDS of years. Anyone want to take bets if western society can remain stable for another 100 years?????
Finally we have to thank you Yanks for the actual colonisation of Oz by the Brits. If you hadn't had that little war of independence back a few years ago, the Brits would not have had to find a new location for their crims. And I would have grown up speaking with a North American accent
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Here is the best photo you'll see of this morning's transit. Taken by Jerry Zhu a member of the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh.
LINK
Look down the page to see the "ring of light" images which prove Venus has an atmosphere (as if we didn't already know).
-berek halfhand
Here's a few other pictures from a photography message board I frequent:
e .jpg
Nice color:
http://www.pbase.com/image/29906625
Impressive quality:
http://cakeru.image.pbase.com/image/29912804/larg
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If Mercury's orbit was not inclined with respect to the orbit of the Earth, Mercury would transit across the Sun every 116 days (the period of time between two identical configurations Sun-Mecuri as seen from the Earth; i.e. synodic period). But the inclination of Mercury's orbit (7 degress) causes that most times Mercury's path crosses "above" or "below" the solar disc, without a transit taking place. Therefore, on average, there are only 13 transits per century, separated by intervals ranging from 3.5 to 13 years. Currently, transits of Mercury can only occur during the months of May and November. Stolen From http://www.am.ub.es/~emasana/mercuri2003/faq_eng.h tml
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
With thanks to Google:
Transits of Mercury: 2001-2100
Date Time
2003 May 07 07:52
2006 Nov 08 21:41
2016 May 09 14:57
2019 Nov 11 15:20
2032 Nov 13 08:54
2039 Nov 07 08:46
2049 May 07 14:24
2052 Nov 09 02:30
2062 May 10 21:37
2065 Nov 11 20:07
2078 Nov 14 13:42
2085 Nov 07 13:36
2095 May 08 21:08
2098 Nov 10 07:18
-- IANAL, BIPOOTV
What's the deal with using the term "solar disc" instead of the usual "sun"? I'm not sure if using the former is supposed to make the event sound more impressive or what?
It was a great event :)
Our norwegian, super-enthusiastic astrophysiologist, Knut Jørgen Røed Ødegaard, really made my day. Props to him for being who he is, a real geek without being afraid of showing it. And he thinks these things are so extremely fun, that I think so myself.
And the best of it all was that he asked his girlfriend to marry him, in the middle of the whole set. Mad, mad, mad man. But still so great, and so much fun.
Well, and to argue against those just saying "What the heck, it's just a black spot": Well, if I only had the chance of singing "Amazing Grace" once every century, I'd probably do it. Not because it's a good song, but because it's special. After all, it just happens once every seldom time. And the last time, it gave us many answers to astroscientific questions.
Phew, no getting up at 5:30 for astrological events the next few weeks.
I think you will find that the frequency of Really Interesting Events hasn't changed.
What has changed, however, is the amount of publicity they get. Thanks to facilities like this one, more people know about them. At one time only people who read specialist literature knew about various comets, oppositions, and so on.
...laura
I posted this when Slashdot ran the previous Venus transit story, but I'm afraid that not many people had the chance to read it, because I was pretty late into the discussion. Anyway, you don't get to read something like this every day, and the quote can be read in context now, this month, and never again.
"There will be no other [transit of Venus] till the twenty-first century of our era has dawned upon the earth, and the June flowers are blooming in 2004. What will be the state of science when the next transit season arrives God only knows." - William Harkness, USNO, 1882.
.(
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
http://tech.pomfretschool.org/~jl/images/venustran sit.jpg
On June 6th, 2012, Slashdot will post a story about the transit of Venus, and some schmuck will complain that it's a dupe... and then link to this story.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
-1 anal retentive nitpicking?
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)