Transit of Venus on 8 June 2004

Venus Transit

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Some of my images of the June 8th 2004 transit

Venus Transit June 6th 2012

On June 6th 2012 the planet Venus will cross the suns disk as seen from the Earth. It will cut into the solar disk at about 22:09 and will disappear at about 04:49

It will not be visable from the UK :-(((

Transit of Venus on 6th June 2012
External Ingress:	22:09:29 UT
Internal Ingress:	22:27:26 UT
Maximum:	01:29:28 UT
Internal Egress:	04:31:30 UT
External Egress:	04:49:27 UT

It is very much like a Luna eclipse. The planet Venus passes in front of the Sun. Of course the moon as seen from Earth is almost the same size as the Sun so most, if not all the light from the Sun is blocked out so it is very difficult to miss a Luna Eclipse. Venus appears very small (Venus is about 28.9'' and the Sun is about 945.4'') as seen from Earth, so as it passes across the Sun it will only be seen as small object and can only be seen with a good solar filter with or without a telescope as Venus is big enough to see without any magnification, or with image projection methods..

Looking at the Sun at any time is potentially dangerous and can result in serious eye damage or blindness. The safest way to view the Sun is indirectly using a projection method.
You may view the Sun directly only through a special filter made for safe solar viewing. If you are not certain a filter is approved and safe or you have any other doubts - DO NOT USE IT.

As you can see from the list below, transits of Venus across the Sun's disk are quite rare.( About 12 times per millennium) We are quite lucky that two transits are going to happen in the next few years although the second one is only partially visible from some parts of Europe. Of course it goes without saying that it will be cloudy on both occasions, but if it is not, by some miracle, I hopes this page is of some use to you.

December 1631
December 1639
June 1761
June 1769
December 1874
December 1882
June 2004
June 2012
December 2117
December 2125

There is a curious 243 year repeating pattern with 2 transits in December (around the 8th) 8 years apart. Then wait 121 and half years, then 2 June transits (around 7th), again 8 years apart. Then wait 105 and half years and the pattern repeats again. If you want to understand why this happens go to http://ds.dial.pipex.com/eclipse99page/trans.htm where a good explanation can be found. written by Peter M Langford.

The image below show the area of earth that can see the transit of Venus. This will give you some idea if you can see it or not.

This diagram shows the approximate path Venus will take across the Sun.

This diagram shows the approximate size of Venus compared to the Sun

Jeremiah Horrocks
Following Kepler's prediction that Venus would transit the Sun in 1631, Horrocks calculated that these transits occurred not singly but in pairs eight years apart. He was crucially instrumental in the precision charting of not only the 'Transit', but ultimately the Solar Parallax.
Go to http://www.uclan.ac.uk/facs/science/physastr/misc/horrock.htm to find out more.