Re: historical astronomy question

[brian whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

Larry asked:

> > Did Galileo ever see a transit of Venus?

At 17:00 10/17/00 -0500, Rick Strickert responded:
> Not likely.

> Taken from http://www.btinternet.com/~redlion/jerry.htm  (especially
> Section 5) -

> Kepler had predicted a transit in 1631 (it occurred during the night in
> Europe) and another in 1761. However, Jeremiah Horrocks realized
> that, while over a century separates the orbital configurations
> which produce the appearances, the transits themselves occur not
> singly, but in a pair, eight years apart.  Horrocks predicted and
> observed the transit of Venus across the Sun's disk on November
> 24th, 1639 (December 6th on the modern calendar), in Lancashire.
> Horrocks was twenty years old at the time (he died at 22).
> The Dantzig astronomer, Johannes Hevelius, did not publish
> Horrocks' treatise on the transit of Venus until 1662.
>
> Galileo died in 1642.
>
> Rick Strickert
> Austin, TX

Reverend Teddy Reece Phillips, sometime secretary and president
of RAS asserts that Horrocks ('Horrox'), curate of Hoole was first
 to make a visual observation of the transit, though he missed the
 first contact, owing to the need to conduct the afternoon service
 on that sunday.(He gives the date as Dec 4th 1639 by the way).

Successive intervals are 8, 121.5, 8, 105.5, 8, 121.5 years, and
so the 20th century was entirely free of events.
 Galileo's observation was the celebrated remark that the mother
of Love resembled Cynthia - a reference to the striking visual
phases (almost the only visual feature!)

Taken from Phillips's Venus article in the 14th edition, Enc Brit.


brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>  Altus OK
                Eureka!