Thousands of people throughout the Bay Area watched Venus pass in front of the sun for the last time this century.
More than 2,500 people gathered at the Chabot Space and Science Center Tuesday night for the transit of Venus. That’s five times the center’s average attendance, said Visitor Services Manager Samuel Aguayo.
“It’s a great success,” Chabot’s astronomer Ben Burress told QUEST’s Andrea Kissack. “This is the third in our triple solar play — the solar eclipse in May, and then yesterday was the lunar eclipse — and this is the last. It’s a nice way to end these celestial events.”
Susan Kelly waited almost two hours to peek through the center’s 8-inch telescope called “Leah.”
“It looks like a dot… a little black dot on the sun,” she said. “If you didn’t know what it was you would go, what’s the big deal, right? It just looks like another sun spot. But it’s not going to happen again in my lifetime.”