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June 08, 2004

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Keep watching the skies

TV in Hong Kong can be bad. But even it is more appealing than the transit of Venus. Little planet passes in front of sun but whatever you do don't look at it. Instead watch it on CNN, where a tiny black blemish is moving across the face of the sun. Wow. I can hardly control my excitement. It reminds me of the fuss over Halley's Comet. I remember waiting up until the right time, trudging out to the backyard, seeing a tiny streak on the night sky and wondered why I had given up some precious sleep time for that. Especially when I could just go online and buy the photo from NASA anyway.

These space freaky types need to wait for something really interesting to come along. Like that asteroid in that Bruce Willis movie. If I hadn't been stuck in the movie theatre I would have rushed out to see that.

Right, back to not looking at the sun.

 posted by Simon on 06.08.04 at 02:36 PM in the




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Having been told I'd go blind looking directly at the sun, and despite ignoring this kind of advice as a general rule, I have been using the internet to view this "amazing", "once in a lifetime" (the next one is in 2012) event.

So far I have seen a webcam of some technitian giving a "plumber's salute" in Perth, which is more like Uranus crossing in front of the moon, a webcam of an error message via Canberra and a live "simulation" via Tokyo, which amounts to a small CG black circle moving across a large CG yellow circle.

The excitement never ends.

posted by: Chas on 06.08.04 at 03:01 PM [permalink]

Boy howdy, isn't this great?!?!?!? If I were a Trekkie too, I'd have my Spock ears on and be out brandishing my homemade phaser. :)

I think it's just a distraction so we don't notice the Martians stripping our rovers.

 posted by: Ted on 06.08.04 at 11:27 PM [permalink]

The US President is faced with a dilemma. He has just got a call from the President of France. A giant meteor will hit France next week precisely at 3AM and wipe it off the face of the earth. The French President is calling world leaders to get ships and planes to help the evacuation of his people to safety. The US President's dilemma?

Should he (1) watch the strike live as it happens or (2) wait for the taped rebroadcast in the morning and get a good night's sleep.

 posted by: kennycan on 06.09.04 at 01:07 PM [permalink]




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