DeKALB – A little girl stood at the bottom of a metal ladder, impatiently shuffling from one foot to another as she waited her turn to peer through the massive telescope.

The girl was among hundreds who gathered at the Northern Illinois University observatory June 5 to get a glimpse of the planet Venus as it crossed the face of the sun, a rare astronomical event that isn’t expected to happen again for 105 years.

Gene Savory of Malta said he was there because “this doesn’t happen that often.”