Resources

"The transit of Venus on 2004 June 8", by Peter Macdonald. Paper published in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association, 112, 6, 2002 (PDF 111kb).

Solar Viewers

3/6/04 NOTE - The BAA has now run out of stock of Solar Viewers, and will not have any further stock before the Transit.

The British Astronomical Association has organised the import of CE-certified black polymer solar viewers from Thousand Oaks, Inc. of California.

These will be available from the end of April and may be purchased from the BAA office for Ł1.00 each inclusive of first class postage. Quantities of 5 or more are priced at 75p each. An information sheet about safe viewing will accompany the viewers. Please send your cheque with order to the British Astronomical Association, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0DU. Further contact details are available on the BAA website www.britastro.org

Note for BAA Members; a free viewer will be distributed with the June 2004 BAA Journal.

Transit CD

The SPA will soon have available a Powerpoint CD about the transit of Venus. This will be suitable for use in society meetings and will consist of a live recording of a lecture by Dr Allan Chapman on this subject. The lecture tells the fascinating story of the previous observations of the transits, from Jeremiah Horrocks's historic first observation to Cook's famous voyage to Tahiti. There are some amazing tales of intrepid endeavour and in some cases plain bad luck, all told in Allan Chapman's very entertaining style.

The lecture lasts approximately 75 minutes and includes a number of illustrations. The CD will be available from 31 March, and requires a PC running Microsoft Powerpoint. Unfortunately, the presentation does not run satisfactorily on a Mac, though it should be possible to play the sound only on either PC or Mac. It will cost Ł5.95 (Ł4.95 to SPA members who should quote their membership number) from Venus CD, 36 Fairway, Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5DU. Please make cheques payable to the SPA. You can also order the CD using your credit card via the SPA website, www.popastro.com

Transit Times In Other UK Locations

	Ingress, exterior contact h m s (UT)	Ingress, interior contact h m s (UT)	Mid transit h m s (UT)	Egress, interior contact h m s (UT)	Egress, exterior contact h m s (UT)
Cardiff	05 19 54	05 39 49	08 22 47	11 04 11	11 23 43
Edinburgh	05 19 38	05 39 34	08 22 21	11 03 42	11 23 17
Greenwich	05 19 54	05 39 47	08 22 42	11 04 05	11 23 36
Lerwick	05 19 20	05 39 16	08 21 51	11 03 12	11 23 49
Liverpool	05 19 47	05 39 42	08 22 36	11 03 58	11 23 31
Penzance	05 19 57	05 39 53	08 22 59	11 04 25	11 23 57

Note all times shown here are in Universal Time (UT) - for British Summer Time add 1 hour.

More details and other locations can be found in the paper above.

Books

There have been a great many books written about about Transits of Venus - this Books page provides reviews of some of these.

Useful Links

Transit of Venus - University of Central Lancashire

Venus Transit 2004 - European Southern Observatory

Birmingham University Astronomical Society Venus website