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Watch Venus Dance Slowly Across the Sun From Oxy

Head over to the Oxy Quad before sunset to view the rare celestial event through a telescope installed by the Physics Department.

Charles Oravec, a laboratory supervisor and electronics technician in the Physics Department at , has invited members of the community to head over the campus quad anytime this afternoon until sunset to watch the once-in-a-lifetime transit of the planet Venus as it slowly makes its way across the face of the sun.

For about six hours and 40 minutes, writes Oravec in an email that he sent out Tuesday to Oxy faculty and staff, which was forwarded to Patch, Venus will “slowly move from one side of the sun's disc to the other, appearing as a black dot about 3-percent as wide as the sun itself.”

Because viewing the sun with a naked eye is dangerous, the Oxy Physics Department has installed a telescope with the proper solar filter to view this celestial event safely.

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The actual transit starts about 3:06 p.m. and will continue until sunset. Oravec says he will make the telescope available to “everyone interested, and also try to answer any questions.”

And oh, the next transit of Venus does not occur for another 105 years. “So this is the last chance in most of our lifetimes to see it,” says Oravec.

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