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Venus To Transit the Sun In June, Not Again Until 2117
revealingheart writes with this quote from ScienceDaily:
"On 5 and 6 June this year, millions of people around the world will be able to see Venus pass across the face of the Sun in what will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It will take Venus about six hours to complete its transit, appearing as a small black dot on the Sun's surface, in an event that will not happen again until 2117. ...Transits of Venus occur only on the very rare occasions when Venus and Earth are in a line with the Sun. At other times Venus passes below or above the Sun because the two orbits are at a slight angle to each other. Transits occur in pairs separated by eight years, with the gap between pairs of transits alternating between 105.5 and 121.5 years — the last transit was in 2004."
You can check this chart to see whether it'll be visible at your location, and when you should look. You'll need a safe way to watch unless you are Vulcan. And yes, there's even a phone app to help you out.
Or is there one of these once in a lifetime events about once a year?
...in what will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience
Transits occur in pairs...the last transit was in 2004.
So, what you're saying is it could be a twice-in-a-lifetime experience for some?
a good time to go out and support your local planetarium, science museum and/or local astronomy groups. (Yes, I work at a planetarium)
The two within the 'pairs' are 8 years apart, but the full pattern is:
8 - 105.5 - 8 - 121.5 - (repeat)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The Sun Today - Atmospheric Imaging Assembly
Most likely the best view: 4500k - Visible Light
Images are updated every 30 minutes.
I live in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, and not only will we have a good view (egress is just after sunset), the weather prospects are decent. My mylar filter is ready to go on my Takahashi, so is my Coronado PST, bought on the way to the airport to observe the 2006 eclipse in Turkey.
In 2004 I looked at creative places I might go to see the transit, and one candidate was Inuvik, thanks to the midnight sun. Until I looked at the weather prospects there, and concluded it wasn't going to happen. I got skunked by the 2010 eclipse from Mangaia in the Cook Islands, nice sunny weather the entire time, except at the time of the eclipse. Nice place, otherwise.
...laura
The Royal Society and its European counterparts dispatched astronomers to various places on Earth to observe the 1761 and 1769 transits. Two of them were Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. Between transits Mason and Dixon spent almost five years surveying the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Only recently have I come to appreciate the magnitude of that accomplishment, thanks in part to the Mark Knopfler song.
During the transit, when looks at Earth from Venus, will the shadow of Venus look like a dot on Earth? What's this phenomenon called? (something eclipse??)
400mm telephotos are best, but your camera will damage if you try to do direct photography.
So go to ebay.com, and get a cheap 900nm+ IR filter. These filters are so dark, that even bright sun is a pale object through them.
These cost 20$ for a 77mm filter.
With filter on, point your cam at sun, shoot with 1/1000 or faster and then quickly point camera away.
Remember, do not keep camera pointed at the sun continously.
I did a solar eclipse with 300mm lens.
Here are the pics
http://tanveer.smugmug.com/Nature/Solar-Eclipse-July-22/8996323_xLmdqp#!i=598157547&k=7ZhhD.
you can also stack two filters, but then you would need a shutter speed of 1/500 or slower.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Looked at from an overall point of view, this cylinder exists all the time since the Venus-Sun axis is always there, and is only of interest when the Earth intersects it and we see a transit. So, from a time point of view, the event is happening at the Earth, neither Venus nor the Sun.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Whatever influence those bodies should have on us cannot be explained with physics, aside of the moon's influence, which is very real and observable. Its influence is due to gravity, which is explained both by its relatively large size (seriously, we have the biggest moon in the solar system compared to the mass of the main body, at least since Pluto/Charon have been demoted) and its closeness. It's actually big enough to make the center of gravity of the Earth-moon system considerably outside the center of Earth. That something like this can and actually does have an influence on tides and weather is a given and easily observed.
The rest, well, the rest of the planets are simply too friggin' far away to have any measurable gravitational impact on our planet or anything on it. Even Jupiter, the largest body in our solar system aside of the sun, is insignificant in both its size and hence gravity compared to our main solar body. Its main influence, if you will, is that it acts as a huge vacuum cleaner that keeps debris from the Oort cloud away from us should that crap decide to fall towards the sun.
I'd like to be open to any kind of input you might have, and without reasonable doubt I don't want to refute your claim that the other celestial bodies have some kind of influence on us, but I have a hard time seeing just what influence they supposedly have. Aside of the sun, none emit light. Aside of the moon, none are able to block out the sunlight, and even the moon can only do so for a few minutes in decades or centuries. Aside of moon and sun, none have gravitational influence.
So whatever influence these planets should have has to be in some other way. But what way?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Good idea. I mean, as a geek, dates are probably rarer than Venus transits.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.