Sky Watchers’ Association of North Bengal webcasts transit of Venus on June 6

Siliguri, May 29.TT: The Sky Watchers’ Association of North Bengal will webcast on June 6 the transit of Venus, a rare celestial event that will occur again in 2117.

People across India will be able to view the event — the movement of Venus over the sun or solar disc — when the sun rises in this part of the hemisphere on June 6.

Debasis Sarkar, the secretary of SWAN, said the entire celestial event would be of six hours.

“The Venus will start passing between the Earth and the sun at 3.40am. The time will be more or less the same across India. However, as the transit will be slow, it could be visible only from 4.30 or 5am. We will see the shadow of the Venus in the upper portion of the solar disc. The phenomenon will end at 10.21am,” he said.

Sarkar said the transit of the Venus is very rare.

“The coming transit will be the second in eight years — the last had occurred on June 8, 2004. Once the Venus passes between the Earth and sun after eight years, there will be a gap of 105 years till the next event. After the June 6 event, the next transit will be in 2117. The Venus had come between the Earth and sun only six times in the past 400 years. The last transit before 2004 was on December 6, 1882,” said Sarkar.

Members of SWAN will fan out across Bengal to telecast the event live through Internet on June 6.

“We will have four stations, including one in Calcutta, to webcast the transit. Our members will man the stations with telescopes, computers and the peripherals,” said Avik Chakrabarty, a member of SWAN.

Anybody can log on to www.skywatchersindia.com or www.livestream.com/swansiliguri to watch the transit.

SWAN hopes that the viewership of the transit of the Venus will surpass the number of people who watched its live webcast of the lunar eclipse in December.

“When we had organised a live telecast of lunar eclipse in December last year, the event was watched by 74,000 people from 158 countries. We expect that more than one lakh people will watch the transit of the Venus through our sites,” said a SWAN member.

The SWAN members will also take photos of the transit using different solar filters. “The photos will be sent to astronomical organisations around the world for appraisal and assessment,” said Santanu Choudhury, another SWAN member.

SWAN, the organisation of the amateur sky watchers, was formed in 1987. The association was invited to a workshop organised by the Union ministry of science and technology in Allahabad in the last week of April.

“The session was held for amateur astronomical organisations from across the country. Experts took classes in astronomy for the amateur sky watchers. The workshop was held mainly to equip the sky watchers to educate students and common people about the celestial events. A solar scope designed by SWAN at the workshop was accepted by the National Council of Science Museums as a prototype. The agency under the ministry will use the design to teach students astronomy,” said SWAN secretary Sarkar.