Spotting Venus

[wdlove]

First transit of the sun since 1882


By Dan Falk, Globe Correspondent *|* June 1, 2004


In 1761, Harvard professor John Winthrop left Cambridge for a 13-day journey to Newfoundland, taking along two students, two telescopes, a pendulum clock, an octant, and other precision navigation instruments. As the French and Indian War swept across North America’s European colonies, Winthrop undertook the first scienti? c research expedition in his continent’s history.

The astronomer and his team lugged their equipment up a hill to their chosen observing site, and camped out. The skies were clear as dawn broke on June 6, and the months of preparation paid off.

At 4:18 a.m. the men became the only North Americans to witness the “transit of Venus,” the rarer-than-twice-a-century event when the second planet passes directly between the Earth and the sun, and appears as a tiny black dot in front of the bright solar disk.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2004/06/01/spotting_venus/

[Sparky's]

OK hurrah for the planets..... now tell me again why this is so important?
****** happen all the time in space, and this is just another coincidence in the wonders of our universe :eek: this being June 2nd just how was I supposed to "view" this historic event anyway, and why would I want to again?

[Chappers]

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/

Is a good place for info, movies photos etc etc etc.

[crazytom]

OK hurrah for the planets..... now tell me again why this is so important?


If we didn't know this, we'd still believe the sun revolved around the earth.

:)

[Thom_Edwards]

If we didn't know this, we'd still believe the sun revolved around the earth.

:)

but since the earth is flat, shouldn't you say the sun "passed over" the earth???

[Bedawyn]

I have my "special" glasses waiting! :D

Now, whether I can drag myself out of bed at sunrise on the 8th is another question entirely....

[Dont Hurt Me]

OK hurrah for the planets..... now tell me again why this is so important?
****** happen all the time in space, and this is just another coincidence in the wonders of our universe :eek: this being June 2nd just how was I supposed to "view" this historic event anyway, and why would I want to again?venus is allways in front of the sun depending on your vantage point, but from ours its not everyday. The universe is amazing( thanks god) to think the laws of everything just stumbled onto themself is a little far reaching if you ask me. we have only scratched the surface of the scratch if you know what i mean. The moon, mars ,venus, and our own Earth(most amazing of all) and solar system has many mysteries awaiting the human race. :)

[Doctor Q]

Webcast from Athens, Greece, courtesy of the Exploratorium in San Francisco: http://http.earthcache.net/www.exploratorium.edu/venusEC/webcast.html

[Doctor Q]

[Chappers]

Here's my photo. Taken in Cambridge UK 9:20 am with Fuji Finepix S304.
Sorry it's huge and you will need to zoom in.

[Wes]

Being the nice guy that I am here is your picture cropped.

[dopefiend]

Wow, really makes it look tiny, hehe.

[Chappers]

Being the nice guy that I am here is your picture cropped.

Thanks. I tried to crop it with graphicconverter but it looked awful. My boss wont pay for photoshop on my mac at work or macosx. He's old.

Thanks again

[cr2sh]

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/watchtheskies/venus_transit.html

Had a great quote:

"There will be no other 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 ? God only knows."
- William Harkness, U.S. Naval Observatory 1882

and this image:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/60215main_venus_trace.jpg

[King Cobra]

Seeing as the weather prevents me from viewing all but about 10-20% of astronomic rareties within the solar system (in the case of spotting Venus, I couldn't see it due to thick fog), no matter how rare, I have lost almost all interest in participating in watching such events. Luckily, guys like cr2sh know what pics to mirror over to the forums. http://www.thetechpub.com/phpBB2/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif

[trebblekicked]

even google's getting in on the action
http://www.google.com/logos/venus.gif

[cr2sh]

Check this one out... :)

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0406/mercurytransit1_dantowitz.jpg


Click for a 2000x870 blow up... (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0406/mercurytransit1_dantowitz_big.jpg)

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

[King Cobra]

No, your instinct has it: That was positive feedback.

[Doctor Q]

It turns out that John Philip Sousa, legendary bandleader, composed a special Transit of Venus March!

Read about it here (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/html/venus/venus-sousa.html) at the Library of Congress website.

Sing along...

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/html/venus/images/sousa-parts-1.jpg

[cr2sh]

It turns out that John Philip Sousa, legendary bandleader, composed a special Transit of Venus March!

Read about it here (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/html/venus/venus-sousa.html) at the Library of Congress website.

Sing along...

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/html/venus/images/sousa-parts-1.jpg

I actually heard this on NPR the other day, definately not one of his better known pieces. Very cool though. :)