OT: Transit of Venus, 2012

[Bruce Easton]

On 6/5/12 11:31 AM, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> Yes, I'm a geek.  Then again, so are most of the readers of this list.  :-)
>
> For those of you not in South America or western Africa, there will be a
> transit of Venus (where Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun) today,
> starting around 2200UTC (6PM EDT).  This will not happen again until the
> year 2117, so if you're interested in this sort of thing, it's probably the
> last chance you'll get in your lifetime.  (It only happens twice [8 years
> apart] every 113 years.)
>
> Unfortunately, the forecast here is clouds, clouds, and more clouds.
>
> A map of where it's visible:
>
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/VenusTransit2012-Map-2.gif/1024px-VenusTransit2012-Map-2.gif
>
> More information:
>
> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/05/30/everything-you-need-to-know-about-next-weeks-transit-of-venus/
>
Aside from clouds, I don't think 6PM EDT is very straight-up over-head 
for US east coasters, so I'm guessing the lefter, the better.

I thought maybe I could find a clue to this rare event on one of these 
pre-Columbian calendars:
http://www.maya12-21-2012.com/mayan-versus-aztec-calendars.html
but I guess Venus would just be like a grain of sand on them.  The Aztec 
calendar, though, does show a crowned face with tongue hanging out - 
unquestionably a foretelling of the queen's diamond jubilee temporarily 
eclipsing the start of the zombie apocalypse.  The Mayans were evidently 
more peaceful, so that calendar probably has clues about Lilith Fair 
tour dates or similar - but I really can't make heads or tails of it.

-----
Bruce
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.celestial.com/pipermail/filepro-list/attachments/20120605/94deff21/attachment.html