UPDATE: A GLITCH in an Alice Springs school computer briefly stopped the feed to NASA of Venus's transit of the Sun - not an accidentally cut cable in a Northern Territory town.

NASA scientists had set up cameras at the school for the event.

This morning, Telstra blamed the lost streaming of the historic event from Centralian Middle School on a road worker severing a fibre optic cable in Mataranka the previous night.

But this afternoon Telstra discovered the feed - which was beamed by satellite, not cable - was not affected by the cut cable.

Centralian Middle School teacher and event organiser Matt Skoss said the connection was lost about 6.30am and was because of an IT problem with incorrect internet protocol (IP) addresses.

A different proxy server eventually fixed the problem.

Mr Skoss told ABC Alice Springs early in the morning that the school's ASDN server was down - and Telstra assumed it was because of the cut cable and started working on the problem.

But the connection had been fixed by the time Telstra figured out that the NASA satellite link was unaffected.

Telstra spokeswoman Jane DeGault said: "It was too much of a coincidence to think the two were not connected''.

"Everybody's resources were being used on getting things fixed."

The cable was cut yesterday afternoon near Mataranka, southeast of Darwin, and cut many Northern Territory Telstra customers south of the town - including Alice Springs and Tennant Creek, the NT News reports.



Streaming by Ustream

Teacher Matt Skoss, who helped to organise the event, said he got a phone call from the scientists about 6.45am saying there was no internet.

"We lost about half an hour but it's back up now," he said.

Venus crosses the sun in once-in-a-lifetime event



Venus appears as a small black dot.

Victorian observation points:

Melbourne Astronomy Group

Central Gardens (opposite Swinburne University)

30 William St, Hawthorn

8.15am - 2.45pm

Astronomical Society of Victoria

Melbourne Observatory (east of Shrine)

Birdwood Ave, Melbourne

9am onwards

Mt Burnett Observatory's Portable Instruments

402 Belgrave-Gembrook Rd, Emerald (old CFA station)

8.30am onwards