On June 5, 2012, there will be a rare celestial event – the transit of Venus. A transit is when an object passes in front of another, in this case, the planet Venus will pass in front of the Sun. The last time this occurred was in 2004 and it won’t happen again until 2117. So this will likely be the last chance to see this event during your lifetime.

For our area (southern Ontario), we won’t see the entire event. It will begin around 6pm and will end while the transit is mid-way complete at sunset. But the 2-3 hours visible from our area will provide plenty to see. The most spectacular parts of the transit are mostly at the beginning (ingress) and at the end (egress). During ingress and egress (the latter egress will not be visible from our area since it will occur after sunset) provides an opportunity to see something called the black-drop effect where the black dot of Venus appears to pull the surface of the Sun (or the Sun pulling on the surface of Venus) drawing the sharp edge into a “drop” effect. Fortunately this is potentially quite visible from our area.

Special Note: Please do not look directly at the Sun either with your eyes or through any device such as a camera, binoculars or telescope without proper safety filters. The strong sunlight can cause permanent eye damage without adequate protection. There are properly approved solar observing glasses available or safe filters you can purchase to protect you. Alternatively you can also use a pinhole camera to project this transit safely onto a white sheet of paper. Plans for these can be found on the internet.

The HAA does not have any official plans to observe the Venus transit on June 5. Many of our members will be traveling to locations outside of our area to better view this rare event. However there are other groups in our general area which will be hosting special public viewing sessions. We encourage you to look up these activities and view this once in a lifetime event. They will all have safe equipment for viewing the event and most will have free solar glasses. Check out these websites for more details. There may be other events so check the internet and your local newspapers.

The closest to our area is McMaster University and McCallion Planetarium. They will be holding a large event on their campus:
http://www.physics.mcmaster.ca/planetarium/

The Dunlap Institute and the University of Toronto will be holding an event at Varsity Stadium:
http://universe.utoronto.ca/special/transit2012

The Ontario Science Centre will be hosting their own event:
http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/calendar/default.asp?eventid=1206

University of Guelph will be holding an event on their campus:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/events/2012/06/transit_of_venus_planetgazing.html

As will University of Waterloo:
http://waterlootransitofvenus.eventbrite.com/?ebtv=C

Several of the regional chapters of the RASC will be holding events in the area:
Mississauga (UofT Erindale campus) – http://mississauga.rasc.ca/
Niagara (Port Dalhousie) – http://astronomyniagara.com/