What to look for during Tuesday's rare transit of Venus

The last chance most of us will ever have to see the planet Venus pass in front of the sun is coming up this Tuesday. On that day, more than half the world will get to see an exceedingly rare event: a transit of Venus crossing the face of the sun at inferior conjunction. A transit of Venus is among the rarest of astronomical events, rarer even than the return of Halley's Comet every 76 years. Only six transits of Venus are known to have been observed by humans before: in 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and most recently in 2004.

From Perkins Observatory:

(METHOD 3) Welder's Glass
Welding glass is used to protect welders from eye damage. The potential damage does not come from hot sparks hitting the eye (although that is a possibility). Rather, the glass prevents the light from the very hot arc from burning an image of itself permanently onto the back of the eye.
Be careful that you use the right kind of glass! Welder's glass is numbered from 1 to 14 with 14 being the darkest. It is only number 14 glass that is dark enough for solar viewing! And NO STACKING! A pair of number 7's or a 10 and a 4 together DO NOT have the same protection as a single piece of number 14 (see unsafe methods for more details).

But to tell you the truth, this method makes me a little nervous. Do we know with certainty that the company that made the glass is reputable, or that there are no defects in the glass? Are we willing to bet our eyesight on it? Personally, I prefer to project the image onto a piece of cardboard or watch the transit online.

Just saw it in New Orleans on the levee in Algiers Point.

Sun was just about to set and was obscured by distant thunderheads.

As it was just about to disappear below the horizon, it cleared bright red and was able to observe the disc of Venus for about 2 minutes thanks to an intense amateur astronomer who was hanging at the local bar and set up his reflecting telescope on the levee.

Proud to be one of the .00000000000000001% of humans to see such an awesome sight.

Beer in hand.

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