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Celebrate Astronomy Day, Venus transit at IU Kokomo observatory
April 23, 2004 | |||||
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KOKOMO, Ind.—In observance of National Astronomy Day, the IU Kokomo Observatory will host an open house Saturday, April 24, from 6–9 p.m. Visitors will be able to view the sky through the observatory telescope, as well as through additional telescopes set up around the building by members of the Kokomo Astronomy Club. “Venus, Saturn and Jupiter will all be prominently placed in the sky that night,” said observatory director Rick Steldt, Ph.D., an associate professor of physics at IU Kokomo. The sun will set mid-way through the open house, so before twilight, participants will be able to look at the sun through telescopes equipped with solar filters, Steldt said. Kokomo Astronomy Club members will also present a program in the observatory lecture hall during the open house, and educational materials will be available. Admission and parking are free. Guests to campus who do not have an IU Kokomo parking pass are asked to park in the lower level of the parking garage, located on the south end of campus. National Astronomy Day is a grass roots movement to share the joy of astronomy with the general population and to acquaint participants with local astronomical resources and facilities. Transit of Venus in June Steldt hopes the April event will stir local interest for an extremely rare astronomical event on June 8. The IU Kokomo Observatory will open its doors before sunrise that day, to allow viewing of the transit of Venus. “No one alive today has ever seen a transit of Venus,” said observatory director Rick Steldt, Ph.D. “The last transit of Venus occurred in 1882.” A transit is the passage of a planet across the face of the sun. As seen from Earth that morning, Venus will appear as a small black circle moving across the sun’s surface, sort of a “mini eclipse,” Steldt said. Venus orbits between the Earth and the Sun. “This means, that every 540 days, Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun as it moves from the evening sky to the morning sky,” Steldt said. But the planets’ orbits don’t normally align visually, as they do during a transit, he added. “Venus usually appears above or below the sun [as seen from Earth].” The June 8 transit will begin just after midnight local time, while Indiana’s side of the globe is still turned away from the sun. Weather permitting, the final hour and 15 minutes of the transit should be viewable in Kokomo as the sun rises here, from approximately 4–5:30 a.m. Admission is free and open to the public Because Venus will appear to be only 1/32nd of the sun’s apparent diameter from Earth, the transit would be barely visible to the naked eye. The observatory offers, not only a superior view, but also a safer way to see the transit, Steldt said. “Looking directly at the sun at any time can cause permanent damage to the eyes,” he said. “We’ll have solar filters on all the telescopes at the observatory, so you can see the transit safely here.” Transits of Venus happen in pairs, separated by eight years, so the next such viewing will be in 2012. Then, sky watchers will have to wait another 130 years to see the phenomenon. More information on the June observatory open house will be released closer to the event.
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