Fantasy

07 June 2012

Transit of Venus

A rare Astronomical event which occurred yesterday, this is how it appeared in Sydney:
Note that this appears "upside down" compared to what our friends in the northern hemisphere saw.
The transit happens in cycles, with two pairs of transits (separated by eight years) every hundred or so years.  The last time that Venus tracked across the Sun was 2004, but the wait before that had been since 1882.   The event also has a unique connection with Australian history:  Captain James Cook, Captain of HMS Endeavour, was dispatched to Tahiti to observe the 1769 transit, and it was during this voyage that he discovered Australia.

If you missed this event, don't worry - the next transit will be on 11 Dec 2117...

8 comments:

  1. Missed it..mind you it was chucking it down here and covered in clouds..
    Cheers
    paul

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  2. Great pic, t'was too cloudy to see this morning :0(

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  3. my nieghbor modded his binoculars to see it, and shared with my daughter and I. Great stuff!

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  4. Turns out up here in the NT NASA was web feeding from a school in Alice the Transit and they managed to break the internets for a while.
    Saw a great partial Lunar eclipse a night or so before this Transit. Very clear sky and a super bright full moon from our spot on Planet Earth here in Darwin.
    cheers

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    1. Awesome! Yes I heard about the road repair guys digging through the fibre optic cables...apparently it shut down over a million viewers across the world, including a number of schools

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  5. I pretended to be interested in this to humour the nerdy science teachers from my wife's department; they had set up a special viewing area at school....

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    1. I think you are really unleashing you inner Astro-geek!

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