Sky Show Next Two Days

[aslkahuna]

A partial eclipse of the Moon will be visible west of a line from NC to Ohio tomorrow morning. Essentially the eclipse will have the same visibility parameters as last month's Solar Eclipse with western observers having the best view. The umbral eclipse will start at 1000Z (3:00 AM PDT) with mid eclipse at 1103Z (4:03 AM PDT) and will end at 1207Z (5:07 AM PDT). at mid eclipse 38% of the Moon will be eclipsed. Then on Tuesday afternoon, the rarest of all predictable and observable Solar System phenomena will occur-the Transit of Venus which is the last one for 105.5 years (Transits of Earth from Mars are even rarer but not observable-the last one in May 1984). This Transit will be only 8th one to occur since the invention of the telescope and will be only the 7th one observed. Though lacking the pizazz and pace of a Solar eclipse, one should still try to view especially during the contact stages during Ingress and Egress. Ingress will begin at 2206Z plus or minus a few minutes depending upon location which is 3:06 PM PDT. The Transit itself will last 6.5 hours and the Sun will set for the 48 states before it ends. The full transit will be visible from US locations in AK/HI American Samoa and Guam. There will be webcasts of this event including one from the ISS.

Steve

[CO SciFan]

Great APOD today of the partial lunar eclipse over Wyoming at moonset: http://apod.nasa.gov...d/ap120606.html

And here's one of the transit I took right at sunset (note the solar heating fringing effects):

The Sun Sets on the 2012 Transit of Venus by Fort Photo, on Flickr

[aslkahuna]

Here's a shot I took at second contact at 2224Z (3:24 PM MST) using my usual combination of a 90mm Maksutov with a point and shoot camera in manual mode.

Steve