Watch Transit of Venus on 6th June, 2012 - Your last chanc to see it before 2117

What is Transit of Venus?

The Transit of Venus is one of the rarest astronomical event which happens when the planet Venus passes between Sun and Earth and appears as a black spot on the face of the Sun.

The Transit of Venus happens in pairs of eight years. The last one happened in 2004 and now the Transit of Venus will happen on 6th June, 2012. There are two Transits of Venus in December which repeat every 121.5 years and another two in June which repeat every 105.5 years.

Now we are going to see the last Transit of Venus of the 21st Century on 6th June,2012. The Transit starts at 11:04 PM BST on Tuesday, when it is visible from USA and the final hour of the Transit of Venus will be visible from UK just before 5 AM BST on Wednesday.

In India we are going to see the Transit of Venus on 6th June,2012 from 3:40 AM IST till 10:22 AM IST. But the sun rise in India is at 5:41 AM IST so we can see the beginning of the Transit of Venus only at 5:41 AM on 6th June,2012.

Many people in India are planning to watch the Transit of Venus but you should take extra precautions ( like in a solar eclipse). In the USA and Canada, the Transit of Venus will begin when the dark disk of Venus first touches the outer edge of the Sun, which is called as Contact I. The Contact I will occur at around 6:03 PM EDT ( 2203 GMT) from eastern US and eastern Canada.

The safest way to watch the Transit of Venus is to view it through a pin hole camera. A Pin hole camera is used to form an image of the sun on a screen that is placed about 3 feet behind the small opening. You can also use Binoculars or small telescope to project the magnified image of the sun onto a white card. Please do not look at the sun directly by Binoculars or a telescope.

Here is an image which shows the exact date of visibility of Transit of Venus at various places on Earth.