The Transit of Venus on June 8, 2004 at 07:37h seen from
Hvaler. The picture is taken through a telescope with an
H-alpha filter.
Photo: Arne Danielsen and Geir Hagabråten
Photo: Arne Danielsen and Geir Hagabråten
For roughly six hours on Tuesday, June 8, a unique celestial phenomenon was visible from several parts of our globe; the planet Venus passed in front of the Sun.
The weather was not too bad in large parts of southern Norway, but conditions worsened towards the north. About 07:17-07:19 there was a lot of tension in the air as the historical moment approached. The Transit started earliest in the north, but conditions were too overcast to see anything at that time.
At 07:19:21, the Transit of Venus started in Oslo. The first image came shortly afterwards, showing a small dent in the Solar limb. Soon after, we received the next image which showed a quite distinct dent. We could now see a sight that astronomers and others have talked about for four generations without being able to actually see it. The sight of Venus on the Solar limb is so unique that there were previously no extant pictures of the phenomenon!
Venus inched further and further onto the Solar disc during the following minutes. In time, we could observe the famous black-drop effect as the pitch black disc of Venus appeared to be stuck to the Sun's limb. This effect was discovered more than 200 years ago and proved for the first time that Venus is in possession of an atmosphere.
The whole of Venus had entered the Solar disc at 07:39:03.
In the park, the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics (University of Oslo), the Norwegian Astronomical Society and "Nysgjerrigper" (the Research Council of Norway) had allied with more than 30 different organizations to make a great celestial celebration.
Images from many places in Norway as well as from abroad were displayed on a screen of 40 square metres and commented from the stage.
The weather in Oslo was unfavourable and overcast in the early morning. It was only when the Transit was well underway that people could observe the phenomenon with their own eyes, (of course) protected by eclipse spectacles.
It was a strange sight to see the little, black dot gliding slowly across the Solar disc!
At the start of the Transit, a couple of thousand people were present. Later on, larger crowds were coming in, and for a long time around midday, we estimate that about 10.000 people were in the park. The total number of spectators was probably several tens of thousands.
The Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics and the Venus2004 Project had been cooperating for several months to prepare a webcast of the Transit of Venus. A number of groups around the country sent images captured with special equipment and telescopes. On the large screen in the Frogner park, we were able to switch rapidly between images from Longyearbyen, Bodø, Trondheim (3 different cameras), Bergen, Horten, Oslo, the Swedish Solar Telescope at La Palma and a group travelling by light airplane to find the perfect weather.
This rapid switching showed a fascinating geometric effect: seen from northern areas, Venus was noticeably closer to the Sun's rim than it appeared when viewed from further south!
It was this effect that was used early in the 1700s to measure the distance to the Sun!
www.astronomi.no and www.astronomy.no received millions of requests. Furthermore, our images were shown extensively on the main page of ESO (European Southern Observatory). They had a total of 34 million hits.
The SOHO team at NASA had a separate mirror site for the Norwegian images. All American schools and teachers had been informed by e-mail about the webcast. The traffic was thus exceedingly large.
We have received more than 100 e-mails of thanks from all over the world: New Zealand, India, Colombia, several of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France etc.
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Main page about the Transit of Venus |
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Magnificent Transit of Venus |