STARSTRUCK: Associate lecturer Lachlan Rogers viewing Venus as its makes its way across the surface of the sun. Picture: Lagani Gairo.
SPASMODIC rain and intermittent cloud didn't stop more than 100 people at Avondale college taking the heaven sent opportunity to take a once-in-a-lifetime peep at Venus as the planet crossed in front of the sun last week.
The School of Science and Mathematics at Avondale College of Higher Education hosted the festival of the event which won't occur again for more than another 100 years at its Cooranbong campus.
"We saw Venus on our modified solar telescope as a black dot on the disk of the sun," said associate lecturer Lachlan Rogers.
Guest year 9 and 10 students from Heritage College in Cooranbong, joined Lachlan and his father Lynden, a senior lecturer in physics at Avondale, for the viewing which was organised as part of Avondale's Open Day.
"It was a happy coincidence," Lachlan said.
The event also has a link with Australian history.
In 1766, the Royal Society sent English navigator Captain James Cook to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus.
Cook viewed the transit from Tahiti then sailed to New Zealand and to Australia, becoming the first European to explore and map its east coast.
