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Watch Live! Transit of Venus Webcasts from Around the World

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By Tariq Malik
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venus transit 2012 times
This still from a NASA video shows the position of Venus on the sun's disk in Pacific Daylight Time on June 5, 2012 during the last transit of Venus for 105 years. (Image credit: NASA)

A once-in-lifetime celestial event will take place Tuesday (June 5) when Venus will cross the sun for the last time this century, and astronomers around the world are in position to catch the show. And now you can be, too.

You don't have to go to the ends of the Earth to catch the transit of Venus. NASA and many research universities, organizations and amateur astronomy groups are offering their own webcasts of the Venus transit and we here at SPACE.com have assembled many of them below for your convenience.

SPACE.com's complete transit of Venus coverage is here.

If watching a Venus transit webcast isn't enough, you can search NASA's Transit of Venus page here for a live event near you.

Here's a look at some of the major Venus transit webcasts currently scheduled:

NASA Transit of Venus Webcast

NASA is going all out for Tuesday's sky show, with a live webcast of Venus transit from Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The webcast begins at 5:45 p.m. EDT (2145 GMT), though it will be 11:45 a.m. local time in Hawaii during the broadcast.

The webcast will be presented by NASA's NASA Edge program and serves as the agency's primary Sun-Earth Day webcast. You can access the webcast directly here or view it via Ustream in this page right here:

Slooh Space Camera Webcast

The online Slooh Space Camera will offer a complete view of the transit of Venus from several different observatories around the world, including telescopes in Australia, japan, New Zealand, Hawaii, Norway, Arizona and New Mexico. The webcast will behin at 3 p.m. PDT (6 p.m. EDT, 2200 GMT) and include a wide range of expert speakers from astronomy, filmmaking, science reporting and more.

Viewers will also be able to snap images of the Venus transit as it happens and post them to Pintrest boards, Slooh officials said. The Slooh Space Camera feed can be seen directly here or viewed below here on transit day:

Astronomers Without Borders from Mount Wilson Observatory

The skywatching and astronomy community Astronomers Without Borders will present a live webcast of the Venus transit as it appears from the Mount Wilson Observatory high above Southern California. The webcast will be available here and include interviews with experts, amateur astronomers, video tours of the observatory and a look at vintage telescopes. Astronomer Without Borders President Mike Simmons will host the event.

Exploratorium in San Francisco, via Mauna Loa Observatory, HI:

San Francisco's Exploratorium science center will offer a live webcast of the 2012 transit of Venus beamed direction from the Mauna Loa Observatory on the big island of Hawaii. The webcast will behind at 3 p.m. PDT (6 p.m. EDT, 2200 GMT) and include an audio commentary every 30 minutes during the program.

You can view the Exploratorium's transit of Venus webcast directly here.

Coca-Cola Space Science Center via Columbus State University

The Coca-Cola Space Science Center  at Columbus State University in Columbus, Ga., will offer a comprehensive webcast of the Venus transit here from observation points in Australia, Mongolia, Utah and at home during the June 5 celestial display.

The center's three-country Venus transit webcast is available here, where viewers will be able to see images from Alice Springs, Australia, Mongolia's Gobi Desert and U.S. transit views from Bryce Canyon in Utah and Columbus, Ga. Photos of the skywatching gatherings and images from each site will also be available online.

Mount Lemmon SkyCenter, Tucson, Ariz.

The University of Arizona's Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter in Tucson, Ariz., is expecting a sold out crowd during its special Transit of Venus reception on Tuesday. But Tucson skywatchers (and the rest of us , too) can experience the  transit view from 9,157 feet (2,791 meters) up atop Mt. Lemmon  vicariously via a webcast that begins at 2 p.m. MST (4 p.m. EDT, 2000 GMT).

The Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter Venus Transit webcast can be accessed here and seen below:

Bareket Observatory in Israel

Israel's Bareket Observatory will offer live Venus transit images in a webcast here on June 6 between 5:33 a.m. and 7:56 a.m. Israel local time, which corresponds to 10:33 p.m. EDT June 5 and 12:65 a.m. EDT June 6 (0233 to 0456 GMT).

University of North Dakota Webcast from in Anchorage, Alaska

The University of North Dakota's SEMS-Sun Earth Moon Systems program will present a webcast of the 2012 transit of Venus here from Anchorage, Alaska on transit day. The expedition's three-person team includes UND professors Timothy Young (physics) and Ronald Marsh (computer science), and teaching specialist Tricia Young of the University of Minnesota.

These following Transit of Venus webcasts were originally listed by Sky & Telescope Magazine:

University of Barcelona Webcast from Norway

The department of Astronomy and Meteorology at the University of Barcelona will present a webcast of the Venus transit here live from the Arctic Svalbard archipelago in northern Norway.

The webcast will begin on June 6 at 5:33 a.m. to 7:56 a.m. Israel local time, which is about 10:33 p.m. EDT June 5 to 12:56 a.m. EDT on June 6  (0233 to 0456 GMT).

Kwasan Observatory in Japan

The Kwasan Observatory's Venus transit webcast from Japan is here or available below:

Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C.

Appalachian State University will provide live views of the Venus Transit in North America in a live webcast here from its Physics and Astronomy AstroCam Site. The webcast will begin at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT) and end at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT).

Eight solar telescopes with filters will be available on site for observers at the university's Rankin Science Observatory.

Sky Watchers Association of North Bengal, India

The Sky Watchers Association of North Bengal (SWAN) in India will provide live views of the Venus Transit in the hydrogen-alpha range of the light spectrum. The direct link to the webcast is here, but you can also watch it directly below:

Watch live streaming video from swansiliguri at livestream.com

Planet Hunters, part of the citizen science project Zooniverse

The Planet Hunters project, a cooperative effort by Yale University and the citizen science project Zooniverse, will present a live Venus transit webcast here with live views from Tromsø, Norway; Sapporo, Japan; and Carins, Australia. Live commentary will be provided in English and Spanish.

Editor's note: If you take any great photos of the Venus transit and would like them to be considered for use in a story or image gallery, send them to SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.

This story was provided by SPACE.com, a sister site to Live Science.  You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Tariq Malik
Tariq Malik
Space.com Editor-in-chief

Tariq is the editor-in-chief of Live Science's sister site Space.com. He joined the team in 2001 as a staff writer, and later editor, focusing on human spaceflight, exploration and space science. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times, covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University.