Venus transit delights international stargazers<\/p>\n
Agencies, London\/Lembang, Indonesia<\/p>\n
Venus made a rare transit across the face of the Sun on Tuesday,
\ngiving stargazers from Australia to the Middle East and Africa a
\ncelestial view that no living person had seen before.<\/p>\n
To the fascination of people around the globe armed for the
\noccasion with telescopes, pinhole cameras and special dark
\nglasses, Venus appeared at 0520 GMT (12:20 p.m. in Jakarta): a
\nsmall black dot on the lower edge of the Sun starting its six-
\nhour transit.<\/p>\n
"We are watching the first transit of Venus since 1882 --
\nuntil this morning no one alive has ever seen this event," said
\nDr Robert Massey of Britain's Royal Observatory in Greenwich as
\nmore than 100 people gathered in the courtyard of the London
\nlandmark to witness the phenomenon.<\/p>\n
Banks of photographers with telephoto lenses and television
\ncrews captured the event. People queued patiently as parents
\nlifted small children to gaze into telescopes set up in the
\ncourtyard of the observatory on a clear, warm morning.<\/p>\n
Others used special glasses handed out by staff to see the
\nevent.<\/p>\n
"It is very mysterious," said Japanese tourist Hiroyuki
\nNarasawa, after peering up at the sky through a cardboard tube
\nand camera.<\/p>\n
Scandinavian airline SAS offered dark glasses to about 3,500
\ntravellers on Nordic flights to watch Venus from above the
\nclouds. It was partly cloudy over sections of northern Europe.<\/p>\n
On the other side of the globe in Australia it was already
\nafternoon when 40 amateur astronomers gathered at the home of Jos
\nRoberts north of Sydney.<\/p>\n
"I feel very privileged to be alive at the right time, to be
\nin the right place, to have no clouds or monsoons," said Roberts
\nwho toasted the event with champagne with his colleagues.<\/p>\n
In Indonesia, hundreds of people also watched the rare transit
\nof Venus on Tuesday in various towns and cities including at the
\nBosscha Observatory in Lembang, West Java.<\/p>\n
"The Venusian transit only occurred six times during the last
\n373 years. The last transit was in 1882 and the next passage will
\noccur in 2012 but will not be visible in many parts of the
\nworld," Bosscha Observatory head Dhani Hardiwidjaja told The
\nJakarta Post in Lembang on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
In the Middle East, schoolchildren gathered on the hills
\noutside Beirut to watch the passage through dark glasses.<\/p>\n
For the Americas, however, the complete transit was only
\npartially visible.<\/p>\n
In the past, scientists calculated the distance of the Earth
\nfrom the Sun, the astronomical unit (AU), from measurements of
\nthe duration of the transit of Venus made from widely separated
\nlatitudes.<\/p>\n
England's Captain James Cook traveled to Tahiti on a special
\nexpedition to make observations during the 1769 transit.<\/p>\n
This time, too, observers around the world will be timing the
\ntransit and repeating the historic calculations.<\/p>\n
"It's the different timings (from different locations) which
\nallow you to measure the distance (to Venus)," said John Mucklow
\nof the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa who used an old
\ntelescope mounted on a wooden tripod to watch the spectacle from
\nthe roof of a hotel near Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
But Dr Robert Walsh, of the University of Central Lancashire
\nin northern England, had arguably the best viewing position --
\nthe bedroom of British astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks who was the
\nfirst person to observe a transit in 1639.<\/p>\n
"To see what he saw from a specific point is very exciting
\nindeed," he said.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/venus-transit-delights-international-stargazers-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}