Talk:2012 transit of Venus

Comments

Is this really needed? Surely it could be part of the Transit of Venus page? :porge 14:09, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No, this material should not go on the Transit of Venus page.

The Transit of Venus page should contain "timeless" information about transits of Venus, whereas the Transit of Venus, 2004 page should contain information specific only to the 2004 transit (image galleries, times and places where it could be observed, etc).

The Transit of Venus, 2012 page was created by analogy to the Transit of Venus, 2004 page. Curps 15:20, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

i saw many times — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.186.181.196 (talk) 00:44, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Tone

This article is being way to instructional. It's kind of early for that. TheOtherSiguy 17:18, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by early and instructional. The article has a tone of certainty, but it's hardly early for that - major astronomical events can be predicted extremely accurately. 'Net (talk) 13:27, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Tahiti Section

I've flagged the section about Tahiti because it sounds an awful lot like it's taken out of a travel ad or the like. I don't necessarily think the section should be removed, but it certainly needs to sound more encylopedic. I'll look around for some sources, but if anyone can contribute, feel free. Thanks! Mattmpg23 (talk) 20:33, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Text to first picture

The text: ""Sun to same scale as planets". This note refers not to the size of the graphical representations of the planets but rather to the size of their orbits relative to the graphical representation of the Sun", can't be right. The diameter of the Sun is less than a percent of the distance between Earth and the Sun, which is clearly different from the scale of the picture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.163.50.146 (talk) 18:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I admit that the diagramme is confusing. The huge brown sun labelled "Sun to same scale as planets" is at the same scale as the images of the planets. The bright white-yellow sun is just marks where the sun should be, and its size is not at any particular scale. Hope that clarifies it! cmɢʟee☺τaʟκ 05:06, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I noticed the problem and fixed it a few days ago so it should be correct now. ALK (Talk) 20:08, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, ALK! cmɢʟee☺τaʟκ 12:24, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Solar system diagram

Why is this picture so prominent? Shouldn't the first picture be something more-directly related to the transit? I don't get it. Rsduhamel (talk) 01:11, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to see this bizarre Solar system diagram removed. Other than giving people a view of the orbit of Halley's Comet and the Outer Planets, it's of no help in explaining the Transit of Venus in 2012. Presumably there are some tiny dots in the very centre of the image showing Earth and Venus in alignment with the Sun, but I can't see them. Pasicles (talk) 16:56, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

The graphic was very helpful for understanding Halley's Comet. Unfortionately, this article has nothing to do with the comet. Jonathunder (talk) 17:07, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

When visible

Misuse of "time zone". The offset to be added depends not only on the time zone but on the state of summer time. 94.30.84.71 (talk) 11:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand the distribution of visibility

Take the simplest case, North Pole. There surely is polar day. Sun is visible all the day around. Difference of visible location of Venus relative to Sun is less than the size of disk of Venus even for the most distant points on Earth (diameter of Venus in near to that of Earth, and its distance to Sun is substantially closer), while the pictures show that Venus will cross Sun's disk achieving distances from its border much more than Venus's diameter.

Upd. North Pole may be surrounded by detatched area of all-phases visibility, unshown for practical irrelevance. But there must be a meridional tier extending to the Pole where at least a part of the transit is visible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.126.184.69 (talk) 08:15, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I have removed some extraneous material from the comment and will explain at User talk:77.126.184.69. Johnuniq (talk) 09:12, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

The diagram and its accompanying text show that the high Arctic areas are in the region where the entire transit will be visible. On the diagram, see the "Entire Transit Visible" label at its right edge; that applies to all the areas with no shaded background. Johnuniq (talk) 09:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. It didn't fit in the iframe (in Russian version - in the screen), in both cases I had to scroll but didn't know what to look for; plus a text in LJ, not wrong but misleading, based on this article.77.126.184.69 (talk) 15:29, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Transit photos

My photo from NE China is here: http://imgur.com/XMtrk

It's not as nice as the one in the article, but the sun is yellow ^_^

The Masked Booby (talk) 09:27, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

---

Are all these images necessary? They all feature the same event from different perspectives around earth, the difference between each picture apart from the time it was taken at and the position of Venus is barely discernible. All these images can easily be accessed from a WikiCommons link to the Transit of Venus category which is already at the bottom of this article. YuMaNuMa ^Contrib 13:56, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, you could probably use them to work out the size of the Solar System :-) Richerman (talk) 14:20, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we have WAY too many images on this page. We have 37 images at the bottom of the page, and most of them look the same or similar, and some of them (like the Kazahkstan image) are fuzzy and really don't illustrate the event all that well. (And, as YuMa said, all of these images are in Commons.) This is an encyclopedia, not PhotoBucket. Sleddog116 (talk) 19:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest pick the best four, or most diverse four, and use them for the gallery, removing everything else. The Commons category is absolutely stuffed with images for people to peruse at their pleasure, no need showing so many here. — Huntster (t @ c) 00:13, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but wait another 48 hours. The images and the external links will need pruning, but there is no need to do it now when they will be of some interest to readers. Johnuniq (talk) 00:20, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree, let the people have their day. If you remove them now you'll be fighting a losing battle as more will be added. Anyway, it's nice to see the enthusiasm. Personally, I didn't realise the Sun came in so many colours! Richerman (talk) 07:11, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I definitely agree. Heck, wait a couple of weeks even, its not like we're in a rush. This page alone has been viewed nearly 400,000 times in the past three days, so perhaps wait till it falls back down to around 1- to 2,000 a day. — Huntster (t @ c) 10:38, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we should go on a purge, but some of the pictures - I'm specifically thinking of the Kazahkstan and San Francisco pictures - really don't illustrate the article that well because (and I hate to sound like the little black raincloud) they're just bad pictures. The transit in those two photos (and they're not the only two, just the first two that come to mind) is barely even visible at all, and it certainly is not shown well enough to be of illustrative quality. We can do some serious cutting later (as Huntster said, a couple of weeks), but shouldn't we go ahead and get rid of at least some of the photos that do absolutely nothing for the article? It's not meant to curb enthusiasm, but since it is such a high-traffic article right now, we need to show that we're treating the article seriously. Sleddog116 (talk) 13:55, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, some of the poorer quality ones could go. Nearly 575,000 hits aver the last month and over 670,000 for the main article - that's pretty impressive. It makes all the hard work worth while. Richerman (talk) 15:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll keep an eye on this article for a few days. I think I'm going to go ahead and cut some of the obviously-unneeded pictures now (based on my reasoning above, which doesn't seem to have too much dissent), but if anyone disagrees with the ones I remove, just revert me - my feelings won't be hurt ;) Sleddog116 (talk) 22:01, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Transit.Woodstock.MD.20120605.jpg is upside down. Maybe that's how it looked in a telescope eyepiece, but that's not what one would have seen through binoculars or with the naked eye. 63.234.238.4 (talk) 15:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC) June 8, 2012

I added a picture of mine to the gallery. Then I "discovered" that I had already introduced it and that it was deleted.

So, few words to justify why I think that that image can stay there

I took approx. 400 shots of the event, as most contributors did take a lot of pictures, I guess. So, when I chose a photo to upload, I was selecting one that (in my view) was somehow significant: I decided to upload to commons the photo in which Venus "touches" the border of the Sun.

Later, I realized that (as far as I could understand) there were no photos taken without any filtering device. So, I thought that it was worth to add a second photo one of those that (luckyly) I took at sunrise. Since it was offering something of significantly new.

It is quite clear to me that 2 photos in the gallery, from same author and location, can seem un-necessary. And I will not start crying if the image will be deleted again. But I wanted to stress that it was added for a reason (as I made explicit in my "native" wiki, the Italian one). Cheers --Fioravante Patrone (talk) 10:04, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for discussing it here. I understand your reasoning behind stressing the non-filter. However, the reason I cut that picture is because the transit itself (which is the focal point of the article) is almost impossible to see in that particular photograph; the overall shot doesn't show it. If it were cropped and enlarged, it might be better, but I think even then the view of the sun is too fuzzy. Also - we're not singling you out here. I'm glad you have that sort of enthusiasm. Unfortunately, we need to pick the shots that best illustrate the article, and I think this one (even taking the lack of filter into account) doesn't really work. I hope you can understand - if you don't agree, maybe you can build consensus with the other editors here to keep the image. I've removed the image, but I'm not going to be the fly in the consensus-ointment if everyone else thinks it should stay. Sleddog116 (talk) 02:55, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Venus is not visible in the thumbnail (after all, the Sun is quite bright), but is clearly seen in the picture that opens by default when you click on the thumbnail. It is even visible in the lowest resolution offered by commons (320*155 pixels). --Fioravante Patrone (talk) 12:13, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

It would be nice to make a collage of some of these pictures taken from different latitudes (e.g., Sweden, India, Australia) to illustrate the parallax effect. --İnfoCan (talk) 16:20, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, a collage would be nice because all the suns could be oriented the same north-up, and scale for comparison, but since time is another variable, and time isn't even necessarily known on some photos, or not accurately, I'm sure it would be hard to show parallax effects. (I did some simulations, comparing Australia and eastern Canada, at transit first contact, and found parallax was just under the diameter of Venus.) Tom Ruen (talk) 20:18, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

The Wichita Falls, Texas and Auckland, NZ pictures seem to have been taken at the same time, when Venus was tangential to the Sun. I don't have access to the right software to check it right now, do they show a discernible difference? --İnfoCan (talk) 20:57, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

And the Amman, Jordan picture can used to show the path of the transit. Amman, Jordan and Wichita, Texas are nearly on the same latitude (31° and 33° N)--İnfoCan (talk) 21:02, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think a lot of these pictures show a discernible difference. If you look at the conversation above, we're going to go through all of these photos and cut the ones that just aren't needed. Sleddog116 (talk) 13:25, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I understand that there are too many pictures. My comment above was about three of them that would be valuable for creating a montage with educational value. Two of the pictures could be superimposed to show the parallax effect because they were taken at nearly the same time from nearly half a world apart (Wichita Falls, Texas is at 34° N and Auckland, New Zealand is at 36° S). The Amman, Jordan picture could be superimposed as well because it shows three pictures of Venus on it and would be nice to draw a line through them. This line should meet the Venus seen in the Wichita Falls picture because Amman (32° N) and Wichita Falls (34° N) are nearly at the same latitude. If you look at the sun spot patterns, you can see that the Amman and Wichita Falls pictures were taken at opposite ends of the transit, while the Auckland and Wichita Falls pictures show Venus at the same side of the the Sun. --İnfoCan (talk) 14:52, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I don't disagree. If you want to make such a collage, go for it, by all means. That's actually a good solution because it allows us to be as inclusive as possible while still limiting the number of pictures on the article. Sleddog116 (talk) 15:26, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll add my encouragement. InfoCan, or anyone else, if you can do this, that would be fantastic. — Huntster (t @ c) 02:42, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I tried to do this using Adobe Fireworks, using the sunspots as guides to align the Texas and New Zealand pictures. However, I can't align all the sunspots simultaneously. Same problem with the Amman picture. Is there a parallax effect on sun spots too? If so, I wouldn't know how to correct for them. And the three Venuses in the Amman picture are not exactly co-linear. Oh, and the New Zealand picture does not have the proper license info. I give up. --İnfoCan (talk) 14:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

In the news

Editors and readers may be interested in commenting on the issues raised in the Transit of Venus, 2012 thread at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates. Richerman (talk) 12:21, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Oh Halleliua! We've finally made the main page "in the news" section too. Richerman (talk) 12:34, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

File:SDO's Ultra-high Definition View of 2012 Venus Transit (304 Angstrom Full Disc 02).jpg to appear as POTD

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:SDO's Ultra-high Definition View of 2012 Venus Transit (304 Angstrom Full Disc 02).jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on June 5, 2013. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2013-06-05. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:23, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Picture of the day

A picture of the 2012 transit of Venus by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, from 36,000 km (22,000 mi) above the Earth. A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth. It is one of the rarest predictable astronomical phenomena and happens in pairs eight years apart that are separated from each other by 105 or 121 years. The last transit before 2012 was in 2004, and the next pair of transits will occur in 2117 and 2125.Photo: NASA/SDO

Thanks for the notice Crisco, it really is a nice image. I think we're good here, but I'll keep an eye on things, and image is already being watched. — Huntster (t @ c) 04:57, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

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