The transit of the planet Venus across the face of the sun is a fairly rare event. When the transit occurred on June 8, 2004, no one alive had ever witnessed one, and there were no photographs of the event. In 6000 years there are only 81 such transits, with the last one before 2004 being in 1882. Transits of Venus come in pairs separated by 8 years, thus the second of the pair occurred in 2012. If you missed both of these you will never see one (except for photos in this Gallery) because the next one will be in the year 2117! It is highly likely that you won’t be around to see it! The 2004 transit was viewed in it’s entirety by the moderator and nine other “transit chasers” in ideal cloudless skies from Victoria Falls in Zambia. Zambia was one of the best spots in the world to view the entire six hours of this transit. The planet Venus was observed for the entire duration as it entered the sun’s disk (ingress) and six hours later exited (egress). A celebration dinner cruise on the Zambezi river was held following the transit, with spectacular views of the southern milky way.
The 2012 Transit was visible in North America, therefore it was viewed in Michigan looking out over the waters of Lake Huron on a clear summer day. Only the initial 3 hours were visible in Michigan, as the sun was setting as Venus reached the midpoint of the sun’s disk. Those further west in California, Arizona and Oregon were able to view another hour and a half of the Transit before the sun set there. Unlike the 2004 Transit, the sun has a large collection of sunspots (in June of 2012 the sun was almost totally clear of spot activity). However, the disk of Venus did not pass over any of the spots, as Mercury did in its 1970 Transit.
Gallery Slideshow of Photos for the 2004 and 2012 Transits of Venus:
*** NOTE: Click on “Show as Slideshow” to Display these Venus Transit Photos as a Slideshow at the Bottom of the Page. When the Slideshow Begins, place the Curser at the Bottom Center of the Photo to View the Slideshow Navigation Bar. The Title of each Slide is in the Center of the Navigation Bar. To Pause the Slideshow on a particular Transit photo to study it, simply click on the Slide Number towards the left of the Navigation Bar. To Mute and Unmute the Music, click on the Speaker Icon that is Second from the Right. To Display the Slideshow in the Full Screen Mode instead of the default display that is in a Smaller Window, click on the Display Icon at the Far Right End of the Navigation Bar. To end the Slideshow click out of Full Screen mode and click on “Show Picture List” at the upper left of the slideshow window.***