Transit of Venus across the Disk of the Sun
If it is clear we will observe it from around 5PM until sunset from the
roof of the Parking Garage at Fenton and King Street on Tuesday, 5 June 2012.
If it is hopelessly cloudy and predicted to continue that way
well past the event then we will have a show in the planetarium
watching web cams of this event. The real thing is better!
We will have, at a minimum, telescopes with solar filters (10
inch (2540mm) Meade LX200-GPS-SMT, and a 3
1/2 inch (88.9mm) Questar ), so you will not go blind, and a sun-spotter
telescope that will project the sun on a white piece of paper to
see sunspots an of course Venus. WE WILL not pass out or
sell eclipse glasses, we gave away 500 of them free from NASA 8 years
ago, THEY DO NOT ALLOW YOU TO SEE VENUS. They are safe, but you
can not see sunspots or Venus transiting the sun. The sun a 1/2
degree across and Venus is around 1/32 in angle, or less than one arc
minute. YOU
CAN NOT SEE VENUS on the DISK OF THE SUN WITHOUT MAGNIFICATION.
Not only do I know this theoretically now, but we tried it 8 years ago
and it did not work. The transit itself will start around 6:09PM,
sunspots before that and the significance of what we are about to see
will be shared.
The reason why transits of Venus across the disk of the sun are
important, aside from the spectacle and their rarity, is that is how we
know that we are 8.3 light minutes (149 million kilometers, 93 million
miles) away from the sun. By measuring the distance on the earth
between two observers and the small angular difference between the two
observers transit of Venus; we can scale up the earth distance to
give us the earth to Venus distance and from that the earth to the sun
distance of 1 AU (Astronomical Unit). All other distances to
planets, stars, and galaxies are based upon this first close distance
in our Solar System the AU. Before the AU was determined in terms
of some known value on the earth we could not say how far the planets
or stars or galaxies were away. All distances off of the
earth are based upon our determination of the AU, and this is
only our 7th opportunity to use this method with the transit of
Venus across the disk of the Sun (1639, 1761, 1769, 1874 ,1882, and
2004). Come join us for this scientifically historical
event. You can not afford to wait until December
2117. NASA site to see it on your computer.
Exciting Transit
of Venus videos.
We had good luck on June
8, 2004 in the morning when we saw this event with around 500
people on the roof of the parking garage.
For transit visibility world wide go to this image.
Lou Mayo 2004 Transit of Venus PowerPoint.
Harold Williams 2012 Transit of Venus PowerPoint.
Fox
News 5 interview of Dr. Williams a few minutes before the transit
of venus by Sue Palka.
Montgomery
College's
Planetarium
home page
Last updated Wednesday, 8:52PM 6/27/2012 by Dr. Harold Williams