A Rare Celestial Spectacle of the Century

A rare celestial spectacle of the century, the transit of Venus  occurred on 5th & 6th June, 2012 and was visible to most parts of the globe. While revolving round the Sun, when the planet Venus remains between the Sun and the Earth in a straight line and on the same plain, we notice the Venus appear as a small dark disk crossing on the face of the bright Sun. Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable celestial phenomena and occur in pairs, eight years apart, which are themselves separated by more than a century.  The previous transit of Venus took place on 8 June 2004 after a gap of 121 1/2 years. The previous pair of appearances of transit of Venus were on the  9th  December 1874 and 6th  December 1882.   Again after 105 1/2 years the next pair of transits will occur on 10–11 December, 2117 and in December 2125.               On June 6th from  sunrise to 10.22 A.M. the people of our country witnessed the century’s last transit of Venus. The planet Venus appeared as a small, dark disk moving across the face of the Sun. In India the transit began in  early morning and observers across the country cannot see the first contact of transit. The transit already started at the time of sunrise. As the Venus completely removed from the disk of the Sun at 10.22 A.M., the transit observers got a chance of more than 5 hours to witness the event. The Astronomers, Amateur Astronomers, Scientists, Students, Teachers and Common people (once in life time for many of them) observed the  last transit of the century with great interest.               In our state of Odisha many organisations like Pathani Samanta Planetarium, Samanta Chandrasekhar Amateur Astronomers’ Association (SCAAA), Institute of Physics, Regional Science Centre, Vigyan Chetana Manch (Cuttack), C.V. Raman Science Academy (Jajpur) and many colleges and schools conducted transit observation programmes. SCAAA in collaboration with Institute of Physics jointly arranged the transit observation programme in the premises of Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar. The image of the transit of Venus  was projected on a screen using telescopes for safer observation. Simultaneously LCD projector was used to present the event through computer software. Besides above, safe viewing goggles, wielding glass (point 14 shade), mirror projection etc. were used for safe observation of the transit.                The members of SCAAA started witnessing the event from the beginning i.e. from the sunrise. Scientists and staff members of Institute of Physics and  their family members participated in the programme and witnessed the event. The students and faculties of  NISER and general public observed this rare event with great interest. Similarly in Pathani Samanta Planetarium, Regional Science Centre, Ravenshaw University campus and other places people witnessed the movement of the planet Venus over the disk of the Sun.

TRANSIT OBSERVATION PHOTOGRAPHS                    Kids using there equipments Enjoying the Venus transit with a solar filter                                       Myself Projecting sun over the screen by a telescope Venus over Sun

Our equipments

Prof. L Satpathy using a welding glass watching Venus transit

Hand made filter set to watch the event

Worldwide observation of the Transit of Venus

Visibility map

               The entire transit was visible from the western Pacific Ocean, northwesternmost North America, northeastern Asia, Japan, the Philippines, eastern Australia, New Zealand, and high Arctic locations including northernmost Scandinavia, and Greenland. In North America, the Caribbean, and northwestern South America, the beginning of the transit was visible on 5 June until sunset. From sunrise on 6 June, the end of the transit was visible from South Asia, the Middle East, east Africa, and most of Europe. There were a number of live online video streams with footage from telescopes around the world.

                    In Los Angeles, crowds jammed Mount Hollywood where the Griffith Observatory set up telescopes for the public to view of the transit. In Hawaii, hundreds of tourists watched the event on Waikiki Beach where the University of Hawaii set up eight telescopes and two large screens showing webcasts of the transit. The transit was also observed and photographed by a flight engineer aboard the International Space Station, Don Pettit. High-definition images of the event were provided by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, from 36,000 km  above the Earth.