Slooh Space Camera will broadcast ten free, real-time feeds of the transit of Venus across the Sun live from solar telescopes located in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Hawaii, Norway, Arizona, and New Mexico. Slooh will track Venus across the Sun for the entirety of the event, starting on June 5th at 3:00 p.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. EDT / 22:00 UTC, where a professional broadcast team of astronomy experts, filmmakers, science writers, engineers, and solar experts will explain what viewers are seeing.
The broadcast can be accessed at Slooh’s homepage, where viewers will be able to snap and share solar and transit pictures directly from Slooh live feeds to their Pinterest boards. Furthermore, viewers will be treated to an impressive panel of guests throughout the event, including BBC contributor Dr. Lucie Green, solar researcher at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL’s Department of Space and Climate Physics, Bob Berman, author of “The Sun’s Heartbeat” and contributing editor and monthly columnist for Astronomy Magazine, Duncan Copp, film producer and director of such acclaimed documentaries as “In The Shadow of the Moon,” John Spencer, Southwest Research Institute, and Dr. Dan Kelson, Carnegie Institution for Science.
“Venus transits are extremely rare,” says Bob Berman. “Once a transit happens, another will follow in exactly eight years minus two days. But then 105 years must pass, followed by another pair of transits eight years apart. Then 121 years elapse and then eight. So that’s the curious pattern: 8, 105, 8, 121, 8, 105, 8, 121, and on and on. And they’re always in December or June. No one in the entire 20th century could see a Venus transit. When the event of June 8, 2004, occurred, it was the first transit in 121 years. The 2012 event is the final transit of Venus until December 2117 — making this one only the seventh transit that has ever been observed — the others occurred in 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882, and of course 2004.”
Berman added, “A few odd phenomena happen during Venus transits, like the ‘black drop’ that seems to connect the planet with the space outside the Sun, which will be highlighted and discussed by our experts as it happens.”
“We are extremely excited to have the opportunity to broadcast this once in a lifetime event, free to the public on computers and mobile devices,” says Patrick Paolucci, President at Slooh. “Visitors will be treated to a wide range of unique feeds from all over the world, where they can channel surf, snap pictures, and watch the panel of experts interact all at the same time.”
Media websites can embed Slooh’s live syndicated image feed directly into their own coverage of the event by visiting Slooh’s media page: http://www.slooh.com/media.php
Contact:
Patrick Paolucci
patrick@slooh.com
+1 877-427-5664 x707
Slooh is the leader in live, celestial event programming with weekly shows featuring the great wonders of the universe — shown live by observatories worldwide. Slooh is powered by its members — men, women and children in 80 countries who have taken 1.7 million photos of 35,000 unique objects and events in the night sky since our launch on Christmas Day, 2003. Slooh’s patented instant imaging technology makes astronomical objects appear in true color and in real time over a 5 to 10 minute time frame.
