June 05, 2012

Upcoming Venus Transit

As most of you would know tomorrow's sunrise will be special. No, the sunrise will still happen in the east direction :) but it will rise along with planet Venus, right in front of it. Sun will rise in Hyderabad around 0542 Hours, the transit would have begun by that time. The transit will continue till 1001 Hrs. Me and few of my friends are will be hoping for clear sky so that we can view through out solar glasses and capture photos using solar filters.

Following is the schedule of this transit

Source : http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Venus+transit+at+Hyderabad

While its highly recommended that you gather a pair of working solar glasses and go out
and watch the transit as it is last of our life time. The last was in 2004 and next one
will be in 2117, there will be some virtual ways to watch it as well in case you are traveling or do not find any gears in this last moment.

Where: Virtual Star Party on Google Hangouts on Air and at CosmoQuest
When: ~2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern (view all timezones)

From Tromso, Norway: Astro Viten

From Mt Wilson Observatory, Arizona, USA: Astronomers Without Borders

SLOOH Space Camera

Webcast from Hawaii by the University of North Dakota

Sky Watchers Association of North Bengal (SWAN) webcast from India

Whole bunch more listed by the Bad Astronomer

Sky Watchers' Association of North Bengal (SWAN)

Rajya Saba Channel

I leave you with a picture of sun taken with my camera of course with solar filters gifted by my colleague and fellow astronomer Nikhil Tungare , who himself shot couple of beautiful images of sun with very prominent sunspots just few days before the transit event.

Event information source : http://cosmoquest.org/blog/2012/06/the-venus-transit-is-coming/

Update: Just found the 1882 Venus transit video animation