Venus Transit 2012

Rather than get on the band wagon (for once) and try to explain what this is all about - I thought I'd just post my experience of it and what it means to me.

During the Stargazing Live event in January, Lucy and myself went to some Stargazing lectures in Lacock. Lacock was home to Fox Talbot, a polymath, well known for creating the negative process for photography. Talbot was also interested in astronomy. This is what made me aware of the transit that is now taking place.

I had originally planned to meet up with the Wiltshire Astronomical Society to witness the transit first hand, but after doing some research I found that there were plenty of sites that are offering live webcasts of the event.

This meant that I could watch literally as much of the transit as I wanted to - or could stay awake for - and in completed safety (not having to worry about accidentally staring at the sun). What has surprised me, and something that I didn't expect, was the live commentary, interviews and mini-documentaries that are intermittently shown inbetween the live shots of the transit. Another fabolous factor that really has made this a great experience so far are the people all around the world that are chatting on  the social stream. It's cool how I was able to help people struggling to see the video by suggesting that they update Adobe Flash or to try a different browser (Firefox seemed to be the most reliable for this). It's been great to see all the Sun/Venus related questions and watching all the answers appear on screen. It's such a great atmosphere on there.

If you'd like a bit more information on the transit see the Daily Mail link here. I've added this one, as it's at my level! There are many more sites that discuss the transit in greater detail. And, of course, you can also do as much research as you like about the history of the great human's that have recorded the transit over the years and used it to answer important questions - like how large is the solar system.

There are lots of different filters being used - it's a bit over my head, but offers cool effects. Here's some images from the webcast from the NASA Edge website:

Venus is transiting the sun from right to left. The upper of these two photos is the earlier of the transit captures.

I'm really glad that I took the time to watch some of the transit. For me, writing this right now, it's still going on. The transit takes around 6 hours, but I imagine that I'll fall asleep before it's all over! What's so cool is that this event was trending on Twitter - it's brilliant to know that we're all so interested in these astronomical events.

I hope that some of you managed to watch some of this too. I'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments below.