See GIF animation

Date: Wed, Jun 4 2008
From: Bart Benjamin, Cernan Earth and Space Center

I discovered an interesting astronomy factoid while working with my
sky simulation program today. I present this for your amusement.

We are now exactly halfway between the 2004 and 2012 transits of
Venus. Did you know that this halfway mark always sees the opposite
celestial event -- an occultation of Venus by the sun? This
unobservable event (except on a computer screen) will start in the wee
hours of June 8th and ends late in the evening of June 9th. Because
Venus is on the far side of its orbit, it spends 45 hours (nearly two
days!) behind the disk of the sun!

This last happened on December 4 - 6, 1878, midway between the 1874
and 1882 transits.
It will next happen on December 6 - 8, 2121, midway between the 2117
and 2125 transits....

________________________________________
Date: Thurs, Jun 5 2008
From: John French, Abrams Planetarium

Very cool Bart,

Check out the latest image from the SOHO LASCO C2.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c2/512/

Venus is very close to the Sun (as of June 5, 2008 at 2:25 p.m. EDT).

John French.
________________________________________

2008 July 10
From: Alan Gould, Lawrence Hall of Science

Just for fun, I downloaded a series of SOHO LASCO C2 images mostly at 24 hour intervals around the time of the Venus occultation event, and put them together as the animation below....

About this animation...

Additonal Information from Francis Graham, Kent State University
Date: July 13, 2008

Occultations of Venus by the Sun are more frequent.... They do occur midway between the transits, but they also happen more frequently than transits because we are viewing the far end of Venus' tilted orbit and therefore it is smaller in angular size and more likely to be occulted than seen in front of the Sun as a transit.
Occultations of Venus by the Sun occurred on... June 18, 1976; June 15, 1984; June 13, 1992; June 11, 2000; June 9, 2008 (most recent). In the case of the 1984 event Mars was a month past opposition and the Earth has a month earlier transited the Sun as seen from an observer on Mars. Thus Venus-Sun-Earth-Mars were nearly aligned. In the case of the 1992 event I succeeded in photographing Venus a few arc minutes from the Sun before it was occulted.
Future occultations of Venus by the Sun will happen June 6, 2016, June 4, 2024, June 2, 2032, May 31, 2040 and May 28, 2048. In May 2056 Venus will graze the solar limb.
Past and future occultations can be viewed on/around these dates with appropriate planetarium software, such as Voyager.