Fw: Transit of Venus / P-list Posting

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: Douglas Kløvedal <rennark at hotmail.com>
To: <o.sell at telda.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 8:39 PM
Subject: Transit of Venus / P-list Posting


> Hallo Otto!
>
> I noticed the posting on the P-list concerning the Transit of Venus and
your
> response. Here is some further information for a detailed posting on the
> P-list, please put it on:
> ______________________________________________________
>
> The Transit of Venus occurs shortly *after* sunrise when Venus in her
> *entirety* will pass through the disk of the Sun, and is one of the few
> astronomical observations which can be made in daylight!  It was the
> preferred method of measuring the Parallax of the Sun, or the apparent
> difference in the position of this celestial body when viewed from
different
> positions on the Earth.
>
> Astronomers were sent to many distant observatories to view this phenomena
> *at the same time* in order to have a terrestrial base line. Using
celestial
> trigonometry the distance can thus be computed from the base line to the
> object, or as Mason put it: the exact value of a Solar Parallax of less
than
> ten seconds can give us the size of the Solar System.
>
> As recorded, Mason & Dixon observed the Transit of June 5/6, 1761 from
Cape
> Town and Dixon observed the Transit of June 3, 1769 from Norway. The next
> series of Transits occurred on December 9, 1874 and December 6, 1882. The
> upcoming Transits will occur on June 8, 2004 at 8:45 UT (best viewed from
> Recife, Natal in NE Brazil) and June 6, 2012 at 1:00 UT (best viewed from
> the southern tip of Sri Lanka -- a mystical place to few a Full Moon at
> Sun-Set if any of you should ever have, or make, this opportunity. One
does
> get the feeling that the Earth is orbiting in space, that for a second the
> Earth "jumps!"). Here are a few TRP considerations from *M&D*
>
> 97] And then eight more years till the next, and for this Generation last,
> Opportunity,- as if the Creation's Dark Engineer had purposedly arrang'd
the
> Intervals thus, to provoke a certain Instruction, upon the limits to human
> grandeur impos'd by Mortality.
> [Transit of Venus (every 8; 121.5; 8 and 105.5 years on the Solar Nodes,
> alternating between the North and South Node)]
>
> 721] "...'Tis the Reciprocal of  'as above, so below,'...being only at
> the finer Scales, that we may find the truth about the Greater
> Heavens,...the exact value of a Solar Parallax of less than ten seconds
can
> give us the size of the Solar System. The Parallax
> of Sirius, perhaps less than two seconds, can give us the size of
Creation.
> May we not, in the Domain of Zero to One Second of Arc, find ways to
measure
> even That Which we cannot,- may not,- see?" (Mason's imaginary letter to
> Maskelyne)
>
> Douglas Lannark, an off-line "lurker!" (ha,ha)
>