The Transit Of Venus

A bit of history today inspired by the incredible art installation, in Pursuit of Venus [infected], shown last month at the Bell Gallery: On the morning of June 3, 1769 merchant Joseph Brown pointed his newly acquired, and very costly, scientific equipment at the sun, in what was essentially an international research project. Florence Simister writes in “Streets of the City” that on that date:

. . . a reflecting telescope, a micrometer, and a sextant were set up in a temporary observatory . . . at the south end of Thayer. Crowds of spectators, and those interested in scientific matters, gathered at the observatory while Governor Stephen Hopkins, Dr. Benjamin West and Mr. Joseph Brown looked through their instruments and made their calculations.

The cross street at that site was renamed Transit Street in honor of the occasion. Planet Street was also renamed for the event.

Meanwhile, the British Admiralty had commissioned Lt. James Cook to command the Endeavor for the express purpose of heading to Tahiti and making the same observations. From NASA’s account:

Their mission was to reach Tahiti before June 1769, establish themselves among the islanders, and construct an astronomical observatory. Cook and his crew would observe Venus gliding across the face of the Sun, and by doing so measure the size of the solar system.

Lisa Reihana’s gorgeous and provocative animated painting at the Bell re-imagined “18th century European exploration of the Pacific as a cycle of colonial reinfection and Indigenous recuperation rather than singular moments of contact.” This piece should be permanently installed somewhere.

Latest wrinkle: The Australian National Maritime Museum announced last February that it believes that the wreck of Cooks’ famous ship the Endeavor — scuttled in 1778 to block the British — has been located and identified at the bottom of Newport Harbor. They have a vivid video on their website.

(And NASA has a video explaining the 7-hour transit of Venus. The next transit will be December of 2117.)

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Two sets of observations were recorded that day on Tahiti: One by Cook whose “measurements disagreed with those of ship’s astronomer Charles Green, who observed the transit beside Cook, by as much as 42 seconds.”

This explains the two different men seen at the telescope in Lisa Reihana’s in Pursuit of Venus [infected] which I did not understand at the time.

From NASA: [Naturalist Joseph] Banks’ log entry on the day of the transit consists of 622 words; fewer than 100 of them concern Venus. Mostly he chronicled a breakfast-meeting with Tarróa, the King of the Island, and Tarróa’s sister Nuna, and later in the day, a visit from “three handsome women.” Of Venus, he says, “I went to my Companions at the observatory carrying with me Tarróa, Nuna and some of their chief attendants; to them we shewd the planet upon the sun and made them understand that we came on purpose to see it. After this they went back and myself with them.”