Venus transits tomorrow; here's how you can experience it

Venus will be hanging out between the earth and the sun tomorrow and astronomy enthusiasts are quite excited for one of the biggest celestial events, this year will see. Because Venus will be in the middle of the earth and the sun, someone viewing it from earth will see it as a black dot in the sun, moving along the sun's sphere from one side to another. The event will take place just after sunrise tomorrow, the 6th of June. The last Venus transit took place in the July of 2004, but the next one will only take place in 2117. If you want to experience the Venus Transit, you can either watch it yourself, or along with other astronomy enthusiasts as well as through a mobile app.

Will you watch?

Those in Mumbai who want to view the Transit with other astronomy enthusiasts, KhagolMandal, a local amateur astronomy group will be gathering in certain areas around the city. The group has arranged for telescopes with the necessary filters for those who want to look up at the sky. They write on their site, "The Venus transit will start at 03:40 am IST. The sun will not be in the sky for us at that time. For us the Sun rise on 6th June 2012 is at 06:01 am. By then the planet Venus will be halfway through its path on the solar disc. The Greatest transit is at 07:01 am."

If you would like to witness the Transit first hand here are the places you can go (and remember to go in time!):

• Shivaji Park, Dadar
• Marathi Vidnyan Parishad, Chunabhatti
• Near Kalwa Bridge, Thane (W)
• Bopardi Hill, Dombivili (E)
• Abhinav High School, MIDC, Dombivili
• Lokgram, Kalyan (E)
• Phadke Garden, LalChowki, Kalyan
• East-West flyover, Badlapur
• Father Agnel High School, Vashi
• VasantAlap, Market Yard, Old Panvel
• VidyaPrabodhini High School, Nashik
• Nehru Planetarium, Worli

If, however, you're in another city or you just don't want to hike out, there is an app you can get on your smartphone (iOS as well as Android). It's called Venus Transit and your phone needs to have GPS capabilities in order for the app to work. It will show you the transit in Ingress time, so you will be able to see right when Venus will be entirely inside the sun as well as Egress time, which is when the planet will be exiting the sphere of the sun and then completely outside. The app will also use your GPS coordinates to tell you when the Transit will begin for you. Will you watch the Venus Transit? Let us know in the comments section below.