Amazing Pictures of the Venus Transit

The fog lifted, and there was Venus.

It wasn't quie that simple, but Paul Karmazin was patient and waiting with dozens of other planetary enthusiasts Tuesday for the rarest of rare events: the across the surface of the sun.

Granted that Venus, 30 million miles away, would appear to be about "the size of a BB" against the enormous sun, said Carlton "Tad" Pryor, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Rutgers University School of Arts and Sciences.

But the cloudy skies lifted in time for Karmazin to get pictures of Venus. He took them at the planetarium of Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg. 

Karmazin said the cloud cover broke around 7:25 pm. He took a series of shots during the entire transit, which lasted until about 8 pm. It covered only about 1/6th of the entire transit before sunset.

"The rest of the transit happens when the sun is below our horizon and the completion was not visible from the Eastern seaboard," Karmazin said.

The best place to see the transit, Pryor said, would be .

Lacking that, Karmazin's pictures - along with the colored shots, which were within the planetarium as projected onto their dome - are all worth seeing.