Activity: Transit of Venus Plot

A rare transit of Venus
can be observed June 5-6, 2012. Plot
the path of Venus as the planet's disk moves across the face of the
sun. Submit data to coordinated international observation efforts, such as
was done for the June 8, 2004 transit of Venus by the European Southern
Observatory and Venus
Project. When done, keep the plate as a souvenir
of this historic event. See www.transitofvenus.org
for details on this celestial spectacle.

The sample plate shown
is for an observer near Chicago, where the sun rose in 2004 with the transit
well underway. Sample times
are shown on plate in Universal Time (UT). Actual
times will vary according to your location.

Use the
flat inner part of the paper plate as the disk of the sun. Include notes
and draw sunspots where applicable.

Notice that the event at 11:05:17 UT is labeled as "black
drop" instead of third contact. The "black drop
effect" often prevents the observer from determining with certainty the time when the
disk of the planet appears to touch the edge of the sun.

Jeremiah Horrocks,
who at about 20 years of age observed the first recorded transit of
Venus in 1639, had predicted the transit after correcting the often-reliable mathematical
tables of accomplished astronomer Johannes Kepler. Horrocks' observation
reproduced at left, recorded in the last half hour before sunset, is excerpted from A
Sourcebook in Astronomy by H. Shapley & E. H. Howarth. It is
modeled after Johannes Hevelius' interpretation (right) of Horrocks' notes;
image courtesy of Smithsonian
Institution.

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