In article ,
J. Todd Wasson wrote:
Hi guys,

I'm curious, was Venus on a direct line between Earth and the sun on January
15th of this year? While driving from Amsterdam, NL to Heidelburg, Germany, we
crossed through some clouds/thick fog at 10:30am and later on at about 12:00am.
Looking up at the sun which was dimmed quite a bit, a rather large black spot
was clearly visible in front of the sun. Figured it was Venus unless the
mothership has arrived ;-)

No. Last transit was 8th June last year, next one is 6th June 2012. Then
there's a wait of nearly 120 years for the next one.

Anyone know what it might have been or where I could check planetary
trajectories for this type of thing?

Fred Espernak's invaluable pages hold the answers:

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclips...t/transit.html

What you saw was sunspot 720 - a very large and spectacular one. You can
see it clearly in the SoHO MDI continuum image at:

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/...50115_1424.gif

HTH.

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
"Time has stopped, says the Black Lion clock
and eternity has begun" (Dylan Thomas)