The Transit of Venus

Providing the skies are cloud free, Venus Bay will be a great place to observe the Transit of Venus. Remember you must not look directly at the sun SERIOUS EYE DAMAGE MAY RESULT.
The transits of Venus, they are like an eclipses, are very rare but when they occur there are two such events 8 years apart. During the transit Venus is positioned between us and the sun and casts a shadow. Unlike an eclipse of the moon this show is small and seen as a small dark dot as it moves across the face of the sun.
This is only the fifth transit since James Cook travelled to Tahitti in 1769 to make observation there. Astronomers back in England wanted to know exactly how long the transit took and from that they predicted they would be able to compute the distance of the earth and Venus from the sun. This trip is also famous because on the way back to England he reach Australia, called it New South Wales and claimed it for England.

When?

There are four key events in the transit

First touches the sun	8:18 AM
Just inside the Sun, ingress	8:34 AM
Just inside the Sun, egress	2:27 PM
Last Touches the Sun	2:45 PM

 

Where is the best place to observe?

Well really anywhere around Venus Bay you can see the sun at the times above. Remember the sun will be relatively low in the sky during the Ingress. So I might start my own observations just near lees Road and Jupiter avenue intersection, on the bike track as it comes off the little rise. There is a very clear view of the eastern sky from here. During the Egress the car park at Beach One is a good location as it has a good view of the north western sky.


The Venus Bay, Tarwin Lower Men’s Shed are having activities around observing the transit, weather permitting, including a sausage sizzle & live music from local artists. They will have a solar telescope for safe viewing of the transit, solar flares, sunspots and active regions of the sun. Gold Coin Donation. Check the May edition of Matter of Fact Newsletter for more details.

How to Observe?

I will be using the same method used by captain cook. I will project an image of the sun onto a screen using my telescope. I took the picture below of the transit in 2004 and I’m hoping I can do better this time.

The Sydney observatory has a great factsheet on the 6 June 2012 Transit of Venus. If you’d like more information of making observations yourself, it will even help you do the calculations of distance to the sun and Venus if you want to independently verify the astronomers work.

Mars close encounter internet myth or ...

There are a lot of stories circulating on the internet about a close encounter with mars on the 27th August. Well they are not true, the earth does come close to the orbit of mars on 30th October (if 69 million kilometers is considered close) and it will be visiable to the naked eye, but it already is. The really bright start after sunset at the moment in the western sky is venus and mars is the dimmer reddish star above it. The bright star close to the full moon is jupiter.

Find out more about this "real" photo at the NASA mars-mythbuster site

The planets Mars, Venus & Jupiter can have a slight affect on tides. However the largest effect would have been at the last new moon when all three, the sun and moon where in close alignment and the effect was apparently minimal!

Another light show in the sky

On the morning of the 13th August there will be an aligment of Venus Saturn and Mars, and a crescent moon in the eastern sky. Unfortunately it will occur a little after sun rises and not break on the eastern horizon till almost 8am. What you might see with the naked eye is a thin cresent moon and a bright star (venus) nearby The famous Perseid meteor shower should then becoming to its maximum at roughly the same time on the northern horizon, or slightly east of north. A great place to view this is from the bike track to Lower Tarwin on the rise at the start of the track near the intersection of Jupiter boulevard and Lees Road.

View Viewing perseids meteor shower in a larger map
Look across the adjacent field at the horizon to the right of the Pine trees close to Lees road, just before dawn, for the best chance of viewing meteor trails.

The moon, sun and planetary alignment in conjunction with the current lower air pressure (stormy weather) is likely to produce a very high tide and lead to significant new erosion at the top of the ocean beach profile.

There is a great article on viewing the alignment & meteor shower by Dr Tony Philips of Nasa, but remember his times and date relate to the Northern Hemisphere.

Venus & the Crescent Moon

Venus is visible as a very bright start at and just after sunset in the west and yesterday it was very close to the crescent moon.

A great photo opputunity!

By the way Venus Bay is not named after the planet Venus. It was changed to Venus Bay by Francis Peron on one of Baudain's Charts, and is thought to have been named after George Bass's ship the copper sheathed brig Venus. In appreciations of Bass's kindness in providing the distressed French expedition with fresh food.