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On June 5 and 6, 2012 the planet Venus will pass in front of the Sun for the last time this century. Millions around the world will witness this rare astronomical phenomenon.
This website is entirely devoted to the transit of Venus: its history, where and when you should watch it and what you can do to get involved in the observation. Learn more...
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Author Archives: Nick Lomb
A reviewer of my book Transit of Venus: 1631 to the present in the April 2012 issue of the Bulletin of The Pacific Circle queries my reference to Cook’s first voyage (1768-71) as his ‘most famous’. The reviewer, who has … Continue reading
I have received the following letter from Stuart: I recently purchased and have just finished reading your book, Transit of Venus 1631 to the Present. I would like to pass on my appreciation for the obvious effort that went into … Continue reading
For any transit of Venus observing team an essential task was to determine the longitude of the observing site. This was especially important when the transit observations were to be reduced using the method proposed by the French scientist Joseph-Nicolas … Continue reading
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In Transit of Venus: 1631 to the present I include a series of wonderful visibility maps of each transit of Venus from 1631 to 2012 that were originally published by the British populariser of astronomy Richard Anthony Proctor in 1874. … Continue reading
Lionel asks: Congratulations on your Venus book. Excellent. I notice that there is a 243 year cycle for Transits of Venus: 243 x 365.242 = 224.7 x 395 So far so good. The axial rotation period for Venus is 243.1 … Continue reading
In the previous post I considered the preparations of Henry Chamberlain Russell, the director of Sydney Observatory, for the 1874 transit and the magnificent illustrated book that he published on the event. Here I show a couple of the illustrations … Continue reading
Like the June 2012 transit of Venus, the December 1874 transit was visible in its entirety from Australia. The observatories at Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, which are the capitals of the three main states or colonies at the time, made … Continue reading
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