Transit of Venus

Today was the extremely rare opportunity to view Venus's transit across the sun. It will be the last transit in our lifetime. There are only two transits in our lifetime. One was today, and the other was in 2004. Therefore, it is quite an amazing experience to see this. Venus only appeared as a small dot on the sun, but it was quite cool. The transit began at around three and ended several hours later past sundown. Of course, it was only visible until the sun went down from our location though.

Today, I mostly had to settle for a webcast. I tried to use my pinhole projection box, but Venus was too small to be seen on it. Then, I tried projecting with a really cheap pair of binoculars, but they were even worse. Finally, I tried using my telescope. Under a low magnification lens, I was only able to see the light of the sun. Under high magnification lens, I saw an amazing view of Venus. However, it proved to be a bad idea. I think I may have directly my telescope too directly at the sun as the plastic part around my lens began to burn and melt. Luckily, I noticed after a couple of seconds, so it isn't really damaged. I believe and hope it works perfectly fine, but I can obviously tells something happened when I look inside. At least I noticed before anything too bad happened though, so I should be thankful. However, that is probably the end of my solar adventures using my telescope. I must be content with pinhole projection and webcast. Today, I used this link.

During the webcast, there was a lot of background told of this transit. It was supposedly used to help find the distance between the sun and the earth, which was a large ordeal back then. After it was discovered, it led to so many other discoveries.

Along the same lines of the transit, I discovered something quite interesting in my research. Being in marching band, the name John Philip Sousa sticks out like a sore thumb with him being the 'March King'. Therefore, I was intrigued upon reading this at this website:

"John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) was very interested in the 1882 transit of Venus. In 1882-3 he wrote his 'Venus Transit March.' He didn't write it specifically to commemorate the transit itself, but wrote it to honor the great American physicist Prof. Joseph Henry who had died on May 13, 1878.

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. asked Sousa to write this march for the planned unveiling of the statue of Henry in front of the Smithsonian Institution in 1883. The music was to be played while dignitaries solomnly walked from the museum to a special receiving stand in front of the Smithsonian. Sousa's Transit of Venus March remains a delightful, and rarely-played addition to Sousa's opus of compositions."

Somehow, this was just interesting to me since it somehow combined music and astronomy. Anyways, most of my research came from this site, since it was pretty informative on the transit. It also provided links to find more information. I found the information quite helpful for my viewing, and there were multiple links to webcasts  being conducted from different locations. In the end, I was glad that I was able to see this magnificent sight and will always be glad that I watched it.