Venus Transit. Thursday, June 07, 2012 Contributed By: Craig Niemi | Cincinnati Astronomical Society Tuesday June 5th thousands of inquisitive stargazers around the Greater Cincinnati area witnessed, at least for a few minutes, the once-in-a-lifetime transit of Venus. A little after 6pm, the planet Venus started its trek across the face of the Sun. Depending on their location many folks got a peek at the beginning of the event and again just before sunset.
Through partly cloudy skies they saw a small ink-black dot slowly creeping across a fiery ball. Don’t despair if you missed this one, you’ll get another chance December 2117. The Cincinnati Astronomical Society (CAS) partnered with the Fernald Preserve in Harrison and with the Drake Planetarium in Norwood to share the event with hundreds of adults and children. On Saturday June 30th you can continue your own exploration of the solar system with “Our Marvelous Moon” at the Cincinnati Astronomical Society headquarters on Zion Road. Cincinnati Astronomical Society. SpaceDaily. Heavens Above. Clear Sky Chart CAS DSS. It's the astronomer's forecast. At a glance, it shows when it will be cloudy or clear for up to the next two days. It's a prediction of when Cincinnati Astronomical Society Dark Sky Site, OH, will have good weather for astronomical observing. The data comes from a forecast model developed by Allan Rahill of the Canadian Meteorological Center.
CMC's numerical weather forecasts are unique because they are specifically designed for astronomers. But they have 763 forecast maps. It can be a chore to find the one you want. So, I (Attilla Danko) wrote a script to generate the images like the one above which summarizes CMC's forecast images just for Cincinnati Astronomical Society Dark Sky Site and the surroundings out to about 10 miles. There are charts for 4704 locations. Summary: In the rows labeled "sky conditions", find a column of blue blocks. Details: Read the image from left to right. The line, labeled Cloud Cover forecasts total cloud cover. This forecasts ground-level relative humidity. Starman.