Building up to the big event next Tuesday, Venus is now in the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory's LASCO C3 frame. Mercury is nearby, moving in the opposite direction. Aldeberan and the Hyades are near the bottom of the frame. http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/512/ Since SOHO will be well away from the ecliptic plane at the time of the transit, it will observe a miss rather than a transit. It's summarized here. http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/index.html/ Tom -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.