The Transit of Venus
 

this VERY rare atronomical event is taking place next week!

Transit of Venus .org (5)

Thanks for the heads up, Rou! :)pun intended:) I had not heard about this.

it's today!!!!

i hope the clouds stay away so i can actually see it instead of watching it on the computer or tv!

:D

if the weather doesn't cooperate for you:

Transit of Venus, Sun-Earth Day 2012

^ ooh!! Thank you for the link.

we've cleared up a bit here, but there's still a lot of cloud. i'm wondering if it's worth it to take a run up to the observatory at the university...

If I were you, I would!! That sounds like a prime location.

Raining :(

A stupid facebook friend's status today: "I look up at the sun to see Venus crossing and went blind. What a crock!" The worst part was that a friend commented back that she did it too. Oh the humanity.

Thanks for the link though. Very cool! I don't think it would be visible at my place today. Too many clouds.

okay, it was 40 minutes on the bus and only 15 minutes at the university, but it was cooler than watching on tv and on the web, that`s for sure! it cleared up completely, which is when i decided to go.

in the observatory, they used the big telescope to project the image on the wall. out in a field across the street, they had eclipse-viewing glasses you could borrow to watch and other smaller telescopes with special filters set up so you could see. there were a LOT of people there with their kids, so you didn`t get much time... but it was still neat.

if you get the NASA television channel, they are showing coverage. the darn thing is going slowly, so you can`t really see it move, and they have a lot of talking heads discussing the astronomy of the whole thing, but they will be showing the feed from Mauna Kea in Hawaii, so you still have time.

it`s funny to see people on tv and you know they`re in Hawaii and they`re wearing parkas, hats and mitts. i had no idea Mauna Kea was that tall.

:)

We went out to the water to see it. It was a bit cloudy but we got some good views of the transit!

^ Great pic!

Rou, I'm so glad you went!! I did get to watch a little of the live feed, and enjoyed it. I was singing Bjork's Venus as a Boy the whole time.

I went to a local college to see it and it was amazing! There were ALOT of people and I waited in line for more than an hour, but it was well worth the wait!
I became fascinated with astronomy at an early age, so this sort of thing satisfies the astronomer wannabe in me. :mrgreen: