Community Corner

UPDATED Transit of Venus: Where, How Will You Watch?

Watch it at a viewing party. Another option: livestream video here at 4:45 p.m.

Update (3:30 p.m. Tuesday): You have 20 minutes to check out Venus' transit of the Sun at Fridley High School Tuesday: from 5–5:20 p.m. Here is the text of an invite email from Fridley High School teacher Jeff Bullard:

Attention all curious people.

I will have a telescope with a filter to look directly at the sun as the planet Venus passes in front of it. It begins at 5:00 p.m. this evening. I will be set up in front of the High School. This event is rare and won’t happen again until 2117.

Find out what's happening in Fridleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Stay curious,

Jeff Bullard

Find out what's happening in Fridleywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

If you can't make that local event, check out the viewing opportunities in Minneapolis and Carver County detailed below.

Update (Noon Tuesday): There's a very local option for safe viewing of Tuesday's transit of Venus astronomical event: .

"Chem/Space Systems teacher, Jeff Bullard, will have telescopes out front at FHS to view Venus transit. Viewing begins at 5pm." —FHS teacher Callie Bush on Twitter

But be careful. Here is advice from Christine Douglass, spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology:

Looking directly at it would damage your eye's retina, the light-sensitive area at the back of the eye that provides central vision. ... The following devices will not protect your eyes: sunglasses, binoculars with filters, neutral density filters, or exposed photographic or radiographic film.

She recommended attending a viewing party such as Fridley High's, watching the livestream video (available right here at this post), or making a pinhole camera-type viewer

"using two sheets of paper: make a pinhole in the center of one sheet; then stand with your back to the sun, holding that sheet so that the sun shines through the pinhole onto the second piece of paper. You'll see an image of the transit of Venus projected on the second sheet."

Original post: A rare "transit of Venus" astronomical event will take place in the sky above Fridley on Tuesday evening, from about 5 p.m. to about 9 p.m. (sunset) Central Time, as the planet Venus crosses the Sun from the Earth's point of view. 

Looking directly at the sun is extremely dangerous to your eyes—don't do it, even with sunglasses (special solar glasses aren't available locally, according to MPR). There are several techniques for safe viewing (including this method that uses binoculars or you can safely watch NASA's livestream video from Hawaii here. 

Where and how do you plan to watch Venus cross the Sun? Leave a comment below—or if you have a safe way of photographing the transit, upload a photo to this post.

In Minnesota, the Onan Observatory at Baylor Regional Park in Norwood Young America, MN (about an hour from Fridley), will host a viewing party that includes a chance to see the transit through the observatory's telescope. The observatory opens at 4 p.m. and the Minnesota Astronomical Society recommends arriving by 6 p.m. as there will likely be lines for the telescope.

Closer to Fridley, the University of Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics hosts a transit viewing event on the roof of the Tate Laboratory of Physics on the East Bank Campus in Minneapolis. Organizers will have telescopes equipped with safe viewing filters set up for the public to view the transit. The event begins with a public talk by Dr. Terry Jones, a university professor, from 4–5 p.m.

Both viewing parties will offer the same livestream video shown above in case of cloud cover.


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