np cchris - your love of astronomical realities is matched by my own.
Here's an update:
http://www.breakfastwithvenus.org.uk/
Scientists launch web site to view Transit of Venus
4/6/2004
Scientists at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth have launched a new website which will feature live images of the transit of Venus on the morning of Tuesday 8 June, as well as providing safety advice on how to view the event.
Members of the public are also invited to see the transit using specialist equipment at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre. For the first time since 1882 the planet Venus will pass between the Earth and the Sun, appearing as a black circle drifting across the face of the Sun. Only six of these transits have ever been observed - the first in 1639.
According to Dr Andy Breen, a solar-terrestrial physicist at the Institute of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at UWA, transits of Venus have been of enormous importance in increasing our understanding of the solar system in which we live.
“Until high-powered radars were available the only way of measuring the distance between the planets was by observing transits of Venus from many different places on Earth, when the difference in the times when Venus crossed the disc of the Sun could be used to calculate how far Venus was from the Earth and - with further calculation - how far the Earth was from the Sun.
“The expeditions to observe the Venus transits during the 18th and 19th centuries were the first great international scientific programmes, sending scientists from many countires out across the whole of the world to make measurements – one expedition even travelled to Tahiti with Captain Cook to observe a transit.
“Today the size of the solar system is well-known, but this year's transit is still important for science as astronomers and space scientists use the change in the spectrum of light from the Sun as Venus passes in front to test instruments which will be used in the next generation of planet-hunting telescopes”, he added.
The Institute of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, at UWA will be observing the transit of Venus on the morning of 8th June, using two computer-controlled telescopes mounted outside Aberystwyth Arts Centre. The views from the telescopes will be streamed live to the Institute's Venus Transit website and will be shown on screens in the Arts Centre.
The transit of Venus begins shortly after 6:20am, and from 9am - weather permitting! - the Institute will be streaming images of Venus passing across the face of the Sun to the website
http://www.breakfastwithvenus.org.uk/ and to screens in the cafe and foyer of Aberystwyth Arts Centre.
The transit lasts until shortly before 12:30pm, and from 11am the streamed images of the transit will also be screened in the theatre bar in Aberystwyth Arts Centre. If the sky is cloudy staff from the Institute will show the view of the transit from the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer Spacecraft - one of several spacecraft members of the Aberystwyth team use to study activity on the Sun.
Source:
http://www.aber.ac.uk/