On Tuesday June 5, 2012, the planet Venus will transit the Sun. A transit is when a planet or satellite passes directly in front of the Sun and appears as silhouette on the solar disk. I took the above photo on June 8, 2004. How rare is a transit of Venus if one just occurred in 2004? While the transits occur in pairs 8 years apart, the pairs are separated by 105.5 years if the preceding pair occurred in June and 121.5 years if the preceding pair occurred in December. The next pair after Tuesday will start in December 2117.
Tuesday's transit starts at 6:05 PM EDT and will only be half over when the Sun sets here at 9:00 PM. Weather permitting, I plan on setting up my telescopes and cameras at Pt. Mouillee State Game Area Headquarters parking lot. Anyone interested in seeing the event can stop by and take a look. Or you can wait 105 years until 2117.
I'll be this guy.
This sounds like a pretty fun time. I would love to see this through your rig. Sadly, I wont be able to stop in. I would if I could! I guess I just have to hang in there and wait for 2117....
ReplyDeleteThe weather forecast is starting to look iffy, shifting from mostly to partly and back to mostly cloudy again, so you may not be missing much. Hopefully I can get some shots through the clouds.
DeleteWow, another Michigan birder who is also into astronomy. I'm sure you check into Spaceweather.com daily (or more), too. Really enjoyed your shots/blogs from SE AZ. We've been to Santa Rita Lodge on a couple of occasions as well as the Portal Lodge. Actually saw some of the best birds ever climbing in the mountains there (Olive Warbler, Red-faced Warbler, Hepatic Tanager, etc.) Can't wait to get back!
ReplyDeleteThere seem to be a lot of birdwatcher/stargazers around. Checked out your blog. You had a White-eared Hummingbird in your yard back in '05! Incredible. I felt like I won the lotto last Novenber when I had a Rufous Hummingbird for a week.
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