Once again, Thierry Legault is an astrophotography god.

The ultimate in Venus transit videos, from NASA via badastronomy. You'll want to select HD and go full screen:

Click to view

also, a photo gallery -- there are some very clever compositions in here.

Oops: "Space shuttle Enterprise suffered minor wing damage on Sunday (June 3) when it collided with the navigation guides for a New York railroad bridge during the first ( Read more... )

FB photo album including Transit Day pix. Public link, no FB account or login required.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait:

The last [transit] before 2004 was in 1882, recent enough that photography was being used in astronomy. And it so happens that astronomers at Mt. Hamilton in California were able to take a series of 147 (!) images of the transit, 140 of which were used to make this amazing video

We have an unexpectedly long break ( Read more... )

Most people following my LJ probably already know or have heard of transits of Venus, and given that the media build-up is starting, you possibly/probably also know that the next and last opportunity available to the vast majority of us to see one will occur next Tuesday/Wednesday (depending on local time).

Just to get this out of the way: DO NOT ( Read more... )

Yesterday's APOD is a very thin crescent Venus, with extension all the way around the disk due to refraction of sunlight in its atmosphere.

Jupiter, Venus, and the crescent moon appear within ~5 degrees tomorrow -- look in the west after sunset.

Venus will be passing very close to Mars (less than half a degree, it looks like) over the next few days, with the closest approach on Thursday the 11th. Look more or less due west soon after sunset. Venus will be the obviously brightest star-like object in that direction; Mars will be a bit below it and to the left the first few days and look ( Read more... )

The moon passes in front of Venus tomorrow. Unfortunately it'll be during the day here in the U.S., but if you can find the moon during the day, you should be able to locate Venus with binoculars.

Doubly unfortunately, it looks like we're going to miss it in the SF Bay Area. Follow the link and see if your city is listed.

... and of course I paused on the way to my car to look up and find Venus again. Gee, this is starting to get boring. I'll just have to wait until later in the month so I can use the moon to try for Jupiter in the daytime.