Transit of Venus on June 6th, 2012

Hi all,

I was fortunate to witness the spectacular celestial event (Transit of Venus) earlier this morning at the National Planetarium in Kuala Lumpur. It was very cloudy earlier but soon the sun came out from behind the clouds. I was a little worried when it rained at 6.00 this morning. When I got there at 8.00 am, people have already gathered with telescopes and the media folks busy with their super tech cameras. 

When they announced that we all could start observing Venus orbiting across the sun, I had goose bumps. LOL. There were many 'stations' where people could line up to have a peek at the telescopes. Most of them belongs to the Planetarium and some amateurs brought in their own. 

There was a boy looking up his dad's telescope and the image of the Venus transit was projected onto his sketchbook. I took a photo on that kid's sketchbook here;

See that dot? That is Venus, my friend. Not such a great photo I say, but it will do. From the telescope, the sun is a bright fireball-orange and Venus is just a dark little spot. I have no words.

In Peninsular Malaysia, the transit begins at 6.09 am at sunrise, and ends at 12.49 pm. Malaysians in Sabah, can observe the entire transit until sunset!. As I started writing this post, there is about another hour before the transit ends. 

This made my day today. Have a great Thursday!

Hugs,

Shahrul