I know you guys are still getting over the eclipse that happened on May 20th, but another celestial body will be crossing between our planet and the sun next Tuesday June 5th. Venus will make itself visible as it passes directly between earth and the sun.  Beginning around 3pm (Los Angeles) the event lasts about five and a half hours from ingress exterior to egress exterior, fancy ways to say first contact and last contact. 

The Transit of Venus is one of the rarest astronomical events to view. It occurs in a pattern every 243 years, with transit pairs 8 years apart separated by gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. This upcoming event on June 5th will be the last of the century, the first of this pair was on June 8th 2004. Be sure to catch this one because the next ToV will be in December 2117! 

Fun Fact: Historically, the ToV was used to gain the first realistic estimates of the size of the solar system!

Go check out transitofvenus.org for way more info, including a link to the ToV smartphone app where you can help calculate the size of our solar system based on your observations of the June 5th event. 

(Source: curt.la)

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All tracks were originally purchased from Beatport.com, you should check it out.

Today as you have probably already heard is the first solar eclipse of 2012. The second eclipse is November 13, but will only be visible in parts of Australia. Today’s event is the 33rd eclipse (out of 73) of the Saros 128 cycle. Each Saros cycle is about 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours. 

An annular eclipse is when the moon as at it’s farthest point in orbit around the earth. So it’s relative size to us is not big enough to completely block the sun, even when its in maximum eclipse. This is what leads to the ‘ring of fire.’

For those of us here in LA, we should have a great view of the eclipse tonight! Here’s the timetable of eclipse action:

5:24pm - Eclipse Begins. The moon will start intersecting the sun at this time.

6:38pm - Maximum Eclipse. The moon will be completely blocking our view of the sun, causing a ‘ring of fire.’ Maximum Eclipse should last about 4.5 minutes.

7:42pm - Eclipse Ends. The moon will have just passed the sun.

7:52pm - Sunset.

I’ll be out at Venice Beach today chillin to view it and hopefully get some nice photos. Anyone else interested in snapping pictures today should check out this link for some eclipse photo-taking tips :)