The transit of Venus across the face of the Sun on 05-06 June 2012 UTC was an amazing sight. Even more amazing is the rarity of this event. Transits of Venus occur in pairs approximately eight years apart then not repeated again for over one hundred years. Since this was the second transit of the pair the next will not occur until the year 2117. So, if you wanted to see a transit, this was your last best chance!

NASA has compiled some stunning video and images of the transit. The SpaceWeather site also has information and a user gallery of images.

I was able to capture several images of the transit including first contact at ~2206 UTC and when the full disk first became completely visible in front of the sun.

As the sun began to set behind the mountains west of Flagstaff I was able to capture this image with the lower portion of the sun already behind the trees.

This image is a composite of a filtered image of the sun followed a few minutes later by a standard exposure showing the colors in the evening sky as well as numerous birds.

(Edit: Fixed typo in year of next transit.)