Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, June 5th.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 25 minutes, setting at 9:24.   The moon, 1 day past full, will rise at 10:46 this evening.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 5:58.

Early this evening we will see a rare event, the transit of the planet Venus across the sun.  This will start at a few minutes after 6 p.m. When Venus will start crossing the sun from near the top.  While the transit will last nearly 7 hours, we’ll see about 3 hours of it, clouds willing before the sun sets.  The safety precautions are the same as viewing a solar eclipse, that is Do Not Look Directly At The Sun.  Safe approved solar filters that fit in front of a telescope, projection of the sun’s image with a telescope or binoculars are the ways to view this event.  The Grand Traverse Astronomical Society will be at the Open Space in Traverse City at 6 p.m. tonight for safe views of the event.  The next transit of Venus will be in 2117.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Animation of the Transit of Venus from Northern Michigan. Created using cartes du Ciel.

The Animation starts with Venus at contact 1, and every half hour until sunset.  That’s why the transit ends abruptly.

For more information check out this NASA page.

How to observe the sun?  The same techniques that are use to view a solar eclipse.