2 Major Astronomical Events This Week

This week, there will be two major astronomical events occurring. The first will be a Partial Eclipse of the Moon/Partial Lunar Eclipse (this is the safe type of eclipse to look at, which occurs after sunset or before sunrise), which will occur early Monday morning. Unfortunately, only the western portion of North America will be able to view part of this Lunar Eclipse, along with extreme western South America and eastern Asia, and it is completely visible in most of Australia.

The second event, early Tuesday evening, will be the very rare Transit of the Planet Venus moving directly in front of the Sun. I will post more details about this later today. However, you can learn more about it at this link: http://venustransit.pghfree.net/

Here is an article regarding Monday's Partial Eclipse of the Moon/Partial Lunar Eclipse:

Partial Lunar Eclipse Monday Sets Stage for Venus Transit

by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer

Date: 03 June 2012 Time: 06:00 AM ET

This map shows areas of visibility around the world for the partial lunar eclipse on June 4, 2012. CREDIT: NASA View full size image

The historic transit of Venus across the sun Tuesday is a must-see for skywatchers, but observers shouldn't overlook another celestial event that comes just one day earlier — a partial lunar eclipse of the June full moon.

On Tuesday (June 5), Venus will trek across the sun's face from Earth's perspective, marking the last such transit of Venus until 2117. In a sort of celestial warmup, the full moon will dive through the Earth's shadow on Monday morning to produce a partial lunar eclipse that will be visible to observers throughout parts of North America, Asia and the Pacific region, weather permitting.

The lunar eclipse comes two weeks after the May 20 annular solar eclipse that enthralled skywatchers around the world, and that's no accident.

MORE: http://www.space.com/15985-partial-lunar-eclipse-venus-transit-skywatching.html

June 5 - Safe Public Viewing of Rare Astronomical Event:
>>> http://buhlplanetarium.tripod.com/venustransit/notices/Poster-VenusTransit2012.html 

gaw

Glenn A. Walsh, Project Director,
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