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Community Corner

Venus Crosses Sun For Last Time In More Than A Century

The rare celestial event will be visible in Pittsburgh area from just after 6 p.m. until sunset.

"There's a little black spot on the sun today." 

The opening lyrics of “King of Pain” by Sting and the Police will come true today, although the little black spot is actually a planet. 

Pittsburgh-area residents, equipped with the proper safety equipment, will be able to see the planet Venus as it slowly moves across the face of the sun beginning just after 6 p.m. this evening, weather permitting. 

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The phenomenon is known as a transit and it won’t happen again until 2117, which means it’s the last time nearly everyone alive today will get a chance to see it. 

Transits of Venus are so rare because the planet's orbit is tilted relative to the Earth's. The two planets line up with the sun only four times every 243 years. 

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Safety is key in catching a glimpse of this celestial ballet. To view the transit without damaging your eyesight, you will need safe solar filters, such as a No. 14 welder’s filter or sun shades made with Mylar, but NOT regular sunglasses or smoked glass, which cannot filter out solar radiation, according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette

One way to avoid the "gazing at the sun" problem is to make a pinhole projector, which can be as simple as poking a hole in that paper plate and letting the sunlight shine through onto a shadowed piece of white paper. If you want to get fancier, you can build a projection box from shipping tubes, as the Exploratorium explains in this how-to guide. An alternate method would be to use a pinhole mirror or "reflected pinhole," as described in this Trinity College Cambridge guide

Perhaps the safest way to view the event is to leave it to the experts. 

For just a dollar, people can safely view the Venus transit of the sun through a variety of telescopes, specially equipped with solar filters at the  Buhl Observatory at the Carnegie Science Center. 

To watch the transit online and for links to more information, visit http://sunearthday.gsfc.nasa.gov/2012/transit/index.php.

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