More than 300,000 people viewed the live internet feed of the transit of Venus from telescopes at The University of Queensland's St Lucia campus in Brisbane today.
While vision from some other places in eastern Australia was obscured by cloud, Brisbane's clear blue sky provided ideal viewing conditions, driving viewers to UQ's live stream.
Approximately 3000 people visited an event at UQ today, staged in conjunction with the Astronomical Association of Queensland, to view the transit directly through telescopes.
The key points when the transit was coming to an end, known as "third contact" and "fourth
contact", are captured on this time lapse video:
FTP link for downloading footage: http://omc.uq.edu.au/images/ToV%5F3rd%5F4th%5FContact/
Vimeo link for embedding: https://vimeo.com/43518038
Third contact, when Venus "touched" the edge of the Sun on the way out, was at 2:26pm.
Fourth contact, when Venus last "touched" the Sun, was at 2:44pm.
NB: Unfortunately, a time lapse video of the full transit cannot be supplied.
The ingress (or "first contact" and "second contact") can be viewed here:
https://vimeo.com/43505960 (16 seconds, downloadable and available for embed)
To view an 8-minute video interview with Professor Michael Drinkwater on the astronomical aspects of the event, click here. Professor Drinkwater can be contacted on 0432 887 642.
To view a 9-minute video interview with Professor Clive Moore on the historical aspects of the event, click here. Professor Moore is on +61 7 3365 6800
Media: Fiona Cameron, UQ Communications, ph +61 7 3346 7086, 0407 113 342
Aarti Kapoor, UQ School of Mathematics and Physics, ph +61 7 3346 9935
0449 863 208
