Q: Will the transit of Venus in a few weeks, be visible at Mars?
Could Oppy (or orbiters) resolve it ???

No. Mars would have to be both in precise opposition with the Earth (which it isn't) and at a point in its orbit that was precisely coplanar with our own. In fact, you'd probably see a transit of BOTH Earth & Venus from Mars given those circumstances.

I'm sure it happens, but the interval between occurrences probably has to be measured in geological time.

That brings up a [probably silly] question: would anything be visible to MESSENGER if it pointed towards Venus during transit?

Why would it? Venus doesn't care that the Earth's in opposition.

ADMIN NOTE: Some OT mentions of the transit and its observation moved here (as above).

According to this, the last transit of Earth from Mars was on May 11, 1984, and the next will be on November 10, 2084.

According to this, the last transit of Venus from Mars was on August 21, 1998, and the next will be on August 19, 2030. Transits of Venus seen from Mars seem to be more frequent than those seen from Earth. It is because the planes of the orbits of the two planets are closer than the planes of the orbits of Earth and Venus.

The next simultaneous Earth-Venus transit seen from Mars will be in the year 571,471.

So about the time ExoMars will get there. Great timing! B)

That'll make for some great chain emails among the residents of Mars.

"The next simultaneous Earth-Venus transit seen from Mars will be in the year 571,471."

I assume that a simultaneous Mercury-Venus transit as seen from Earth is impossible because of the difference in orbital planes?

My silly question rephrased: at this point in its mission would MESSENGER ever be capable of imaging any of the other planets?

It already has - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MESSENGE...ly_Portrait.jpg

It's not impossible thanks to the precession of the nodes.
Hence, Jean Meeus has written (quoted from wikipedia): The simultaneous occurrence of a transit of Mercury and a transit of Venus is extremely rare, and will next occur only in the years 69163 and 224508. The last simultaneous transit occurred in 373173 BC.

At this date, we would probably be able to watch by ourself a simultaneous transit from any point in the line sun-mercury-Venus in the solar system, with a portable teleportation equipment.

Preparations for observing the Transit from Kendal are now well underway - viwing location chosen, filters and cameras ready, new lens bought. Now all we need is the weather to co-operate...



Took some pics of Venus through my scope last night, knowing that because of work, etc, I probably wouldn't get another chance before the transit. Turned out pretty well...

Click to view attachment

( More on my "Cumbrian Sky" blog, see footer below )

This site is must see for all of us Venus transit observers...there were some problems with flash player on it but now is OK!
Just click on the mini map and enter your coordinates and use slider in the bottom of the page to see transit progress.
Enjoy!!!

That is a VERY cool site, Toma; thanks!!!

Wow, just barely north of Iceland the sun will be half obscured in the middle by the horizon... I wonder if anyone will be there, around 66 N, 23 W? Should be amazing pictures, if the weather and icebergs won't interfere...

Wow Toma, thanks for that.

And if you want to see the most amazing transit path, drag your locator pin out to the Pacific Ocean to a spot West of Hawaii, 21.6N, 167.8W

http://www.sunaeon.com/venustransit/

And close by at 22.7N 166.2W, Venus jumps across the disk within 2 minutes. The simulator plots on 1 minute intervals, so the trajectory is piecewise continuous here.

I can't understand the geometry of how this would happened, but no matter; if anyone manages to see/film that sort of motion it would be unreal. (are we sure that's not just a bug in the programming?)

It has a lot to do with the rotation of Earth causing the orientation of the solar disc (and Venus on it) to rotate.

THAT is ubercool!!!

I suppose its the same sort of effect as someone would see on Mercury, with the Sun stopping, going back a bit, and then shooting forward again.

Hope its not too late to charter a ship to go to one of these places?

If you can't charter a boat, you could catch a flight to La Paz, Bolivia where there will be a similar looping transit path (though the show will be quite a bit better a few miles to the East or South of La Paz.)

Actually, the path of Venus across the Sun's disk is straight. This Website explains why the path appears curved or looped:
"The diagrams below to the clocks show the movement of Venus across the solar disk relative to the zenith, the point directly overhead. This is how you will see Venus advancing on the solar disk when observing with the naked eye or a telescope on an altazimuth mounting. Because of the diurnal motion of the celestial sphere, the sun’s disc rotates with respect to the direction of the zenith in the course of a day. The initially straight chord, representing Venus’ trajectory with respect to the north point, is now transformed into a curved path."

Oops, I think I broke it...

Click to view attachment

That path looks funny, so perhaps you managed to break it.

Now we're talking of Venus, the planet got a relatively young surface which have been flooded by lava over large areas.

Now research suggests that Venus might have been two planets that merged. And that might explain how Earth avoided getting frozen over back in the days when the Sun were a quite fainter star. Our world might have orbited closer to the sun, and moved outward later on trough interaction with one of the two proto-Venus planets. This is all somewhat speculative, so I think it belong in the Chit-chat section.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/...20530152034.htm

I think the issue is the Sun./Venus goes almost directly through zenith so from the alt/az point of view, Venus is seen to rotate 180 degrees around the sun very quickly. The limited temporal sampling of the plot gives a few straight lines where is should be a near circle around the Sun.

@jamescanvin: I considered that for a moment myself, but the time for the transit is 15,09 to 21,28 with sunset at 20,48. I thought that black part of the graph is when the transit is not visible from that location. So its too late of the day for that - or am I missing something?

A friend and I here at work were scratching our heads as to how those paths could be right - until we realized they were as viewed through an Alt-Az mount. Using an equatorial mount should result in a near straight line across the sun, correct?

Yes, but the crazy zig-zag bit is before the transit. The 'star' on the image is the position of Venus (off the disk) at the time shown in the upper right and is handily just before it executes the weird bit.

This is 13:52 local (-7 from GMT) however -134.7 longitude is very close to 9 hours behind GMT (9*15 = 135) so the sun will pass through zenith (the site is also very close to the tropic line near midsummer to ensure this) at roughly 14:00, just the right time.

@ddeerrff Correct

@jamescanvin: Yes you're right, it is the ' Alt/Azimuth view after all. Case closed, and the lid glued in place and taped on with silvertape.

Standing on the ground and looking up at the sky this is what you see. Life is all alt/azimuth (except when you're in bed asleep or using an equatorially mounted telescope ). I found the site very useful for showing to me and my geographically distributed family what each of us can expect to see. A nice job well done. The front page is a bit like a 1970s album cover though, so I await future content with caution.

On transit day I will be celebrating with a four cheese pizza graced with a single black olive.

Awesome idea! In that same spirit I'm going to have a large glass of Lemonade and Jameson with a fly in it.

Some practical advice for those wanting to watch the Transit from the UK...

http://cumbriansky.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/transit-truths

@Stu: Projecting the sun image on a cardboard shown there is one excellent method and the one that I am going to use.

And quite some of that go for me as well. Like those in the UK I am going to miss the first contact, but weather permits I will potentially be able to see most of the transit since I am further north.

I'll be out in the California desert for other reasons that day, but will bring my binocs (found 'em!), a piece of paper for projection and my eclipse shades for an attempt at a direct sighting (no, not looking through the binoculars.)

And my crappy little camera. Hopefully I'll snap a shot that's worth posting here!

You do know that Sun's IR light can be focusing inside some of glass parts of your binocular which can damage some of them beyond repair...right?
When you project Sun image through a telescope, you should use some cheap Kellner, or some other kind of simple eyepiece...because there are no glass parts in focal points.
The best way to see Sun is through Baader solar filter which should always be in front of your optical instrument. NEVER BETWEEN your optics and your eyes.
Also should be known that this film reduces the intensity of sunlight by 99.999% (optical density 5.0), optical density of 3.8 is not recommended for optical observation (Photo Film OD = 3,8).

I used a pair of binoculars to project the image of the transit in 2004 with no ill effect at all on the binoculars. I was in a busy corridor so hundreds of students and others saw the projected image. I would gladly do the same again even if I had to throw the binoculars away afterwards (which I doubt). Go Stu!

completely clouded out in the Boston Massachusetts area (5th or 6th day straight)... I will watch online...

Crystal clear sky here! But it would have to last for another 8 hours...

I just noticed SDO latest images site redirecting to HERE. This should be some ultimate high resolution images. Does anybody knows what kind of transit path will SDO have?

Cant beleive they have taken down access to the real time high res images, Venus has been visible in SDO cameras for over an hour.

See here: http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/images/latest_aia_211.gif

:Sigh: you can guess from my location alone what's going on weatherwise....

At least there's the streams...

Rain hitting the window as I type this, and that rain will continue to, and past, sunrise at 04.50 here in the UK, so it looks like there's more chance of us Brits seeing Elvis, Lord Lucan and Bigfoot landing a UFO on the head of the Loch Ness Monster than there is of us seeing anything of the transit.

Pleased to say that I have just tied the world's record for most transits of Venus witnessed.

My photos are so unremarkable technically that I won't bother uploading them, but the sentimental value is great.

Congratulations!!!
You beat me to it...I still have to wait more than 2,5 hours to have a chance to catch up...
Well at least the weather here looks just about fine....

Hey, there will be gazillions of remarkable technical images online over the next few days, but none will be any more valuable than the ones taken by people like you, with simple equipment, but a full heart.

I'd love to see them.

Welding helmet + binoculars (one eye only, behind the filter)+ break in the clouds = success! Pretty cool naked eye, too.

Beautiful clear day here in Brisbane. Started watching with colleagues this morning. Used binoculars with solar filters. Fantastic sight. Boss brought along his telescope and DSLR. Certainly makes up for the clouded out disappointment of trying to view the transit from Durham back in 2004.

Clouds managed to clear in the West for about an hour just before the transit began here in Québec City. Transit easy to see with simple projection through binoculars. Kids were enthusiastic, but my wife was a bit disappointed, she wasn't expecting the disk of Venus to be so small!

Remind her that this is another planet we are seeing, the only disc other than the moon or sun to be visible unaided from Earth.