You Can Watch Venus' Transit In Spite of the Clouds

An event that won't occur again for another 105 years will take place this evening. Unfortunately, no one told the clouds that they were interrupting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Since the forecast doesn't look promising for viewing the transit of Venus in Decatur and Avondale Estates, we wanted to provide a few alternatives.

Brian Ventrudo is the publisher of "One-Minute Astronomer," a blog about, well, astronomy. He provided the information below in an email to his subscribers:

If you're in the right part of the world, and if you have the right equipment (including a good solar filter), and if the clouds stay away, I hope you get out to view the transit of Venus [today]. It will be the last such transit for 105 years.

If you can't see the transit for yourself, there'll be many live feeds online of the event. Here are some live feeds to check out for yourself ... Slooh.com will be broadcasting 10 free, real-time feeds of the Venus transit live from solar telescopes in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Hawaii, Norway, Arizona and New Mexico. 

The Exploratorium in San Francisco will be showing the transit on large screens during museum hours, and others worldwide can watch it via their live feed. 

Astronomers Without Borders will stream the event live to a worldwide audience from historic Mount Wilson Observatory in Southern California.

The Mead Observatory also has a live broadcast starting at 21:30 UT.  I can't guarantee any or all of these feeds will work, and they may be busy, so you might need to be patient and keep trying.  Remember ... the event lasts nearly seven hours, so you have lots of time. I will not broadcast a live feed. Instead, I'll set up a small telescope along a local bike path down by the Ottawa River and do a little sidewalk astronomy for this historic event.