So with all the excitement of E3 this week and the buzz surrounding it,I have been wondering if people have forgotten about something that will be happening on much larger scale. I just wanted to know if anyone will be watching the transit of Venus tomorrow? I am personally having nerdgasms about the whole event and can not wait for tomorrow morning to get here so I can watch the whole 6.5 hour transition that I will be lucky enough to see. For those who are unaware of what I am talking about, the transit of Venus is the astronomical phenomenon of when Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During the transit, Venus will be seen as a small black spot, or disc, moving across the face of the sun. Transits of Venus are quite rare. The next transit is estimated to take place in December 2117. So you wont be catching the next one if you miss this.
The live webcast will commence in under half an hour: http://venustransit.nasa.gov/webcasts/nasaedge/
The webcast starts shortly, but the transit itself begins at roughly 10:10PM UTC. That's 3:10PM PDT, 6:10PM EST, 6:10AM AWST and 8:10AM AEST.
That's what the webcast is for. It's not as good as the real thing, but unfortunately it seems you don't have a choice. You might have a chance to catch a glimpse just before sunset, depending on where you are in the US.
Of course that is providing you have suitable viewing equipment. This is literally a once in a lifetime event (excluding 2004), but just remember that it is occurring in the one part of the sky that can cause permanent damage to your retina if you stare at it for more than a few seconds, unless it's already setting. Just an interesting fact to note: the sun has actually set when the bottom of the disc appears to just be touching the horizon. The time that it takes the light to reach us, factored with the refraction of light through the atmosphere, happens to coincide such that the difference between the actual and perceived position of the sun on the horizon is exactly equal to it's diameter as visible to us.
True. The last time we had a solar eclipse here, I was at work and we all had fun making pinhole cameras to view it. You want something similar at least. I was trying to address Tehwafflez comment about what time it was going to be occurring.
