The coming transit of Venus on June 6th 2012 is a rare astronomical phenomenon that will not be repeated until the year 2117. Previous transits occurred in 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882, and 2004

On June 8th 2004, when Venus came in front of the Sun, The Amateur Astronomers Association Delhi (AAAD) organized a grand public observation at the sprawling lawns of the Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi. This watch was attended by more than 5000 people. Vigyan Prasar did broadcast the entire transit on Doordarshan, taking a direct feed from equipment setup by us. A furious storm passed over Delhi that hot afternoon. Our equipment was covered but still tracking the Sun, reopened after the storm passed, to immediately resume the visual and photographic observation.

The transit on June 6th is a sunrise transit for India. The monsoon starts to enter India in the end of May. Horizons at almost all locations around India will be translucent because of almost a permanent haze cover, present all over the country. One location comes to mind when it comes to a crystal clear horizon. The same location which provided AAAD a platform to capture the horizon occultation of Venus in 2007. The location which provided us an opportunity to capture some breathtaking images of the night sky in 2010. This location off course is the Indian Astronomical Observatory at Hanle, Ladakh. The IAO Hanle is probably the only place in India which can provide us an opportunity to see the Transit in progress just as the sun rises. It can also provide an opportunity for us to enjoy a cloud free 6 hours of continuous view of Sun's disc as Venus passes in front of it.

From this location we wish to do many projects during the transit one essential project of this expedition would be to do a live webcast of the Transit of Venus from Hanle. Our recent webcast of the Total Lunar Eclipse of 10th December 2011 saw more than 10,000 hits.