Venus Transit


I visited a viewing event at a local observatory yesterday afternoon in the hopes of seeing the transit of Venus. But because the sky looked like this




the sun was not visible. I got to peek at the cool telescopes, though, and see the progress of the transit on a laptop. Though a bit disappointing, the event was made livelier by the presence of a vocal (is there any other kind?) conspiracy theorist of the moon-landing-was-a-hoax variety.



I went home, and an hour or so later the sun came out and stayed out long enough that I decided it would be worth another try. This time, success. I was able to see the transit through both telescope and eclipse glasses. 

Mercury and Venus are the only planets that are able to pass between Earth and the sun. Mercury does it every 13 years or so. Venus won’t do it again until 2117. If I figure out a way to stick around for that one, I'll let you know.


Comments

liz young said…
So it wasn't one of those "Aiee! the gods are angry!" moments, more of a "Blink and you've missed it!" one?
deathwriter said…
I saw photos of it and it was so cool. I doubt I'll be around for the next one.
Martha said…
Very cool! I heard about it but hadn't seen any photos before this!
I love observatories and planetariums but haven't visited one in years. This was a good idea, Jenny.
Ghadeer said…
Wow! I always make a mental note to find a way to observe these once in a hundred years happenings, and then they somehow miss me :(
Jenny said…
I don't think the gods were angry...I didn't hear thunder :-) The entire event took a few hours, but we had cloud cover for most of that time.
Arlee Bird said…
I missed it, but I did see the news coverage of all the people at Griffiths observatory here in L.A. It was a beautiful day and they had quite a turnout.


Lee
A Faraway View

Popular Posts