Lomonosov and Venus 1761, Capt Cook and Venus 1769
Lomonosov and Venus 1761
In 1761, one year before Catherine the Great toppled her husband Peter III from power, Russia's great scientist, Lomonosov was watching the small dark disc of Venus cross in front of the sun. That is called a "Venus transit."
Mason and Dixon also observed this transit while in Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.
During a transit, Venus appears as a small black disc travelling across the Sun. Transits of Venus occur in a pattern that repeats itself every 243 years, with two transits that are eight years apart, separated by breaks of 121.5 and 105.5 years. --- wikipedia
At the time Lomonosov watches in St Petersburg this transit, he is 50 years old in 1761. He is 21 years older than George Washington. He is 2 years younger than Ben Franklin.
See that litte red dot in northern Russia?
Lomonosov in 1730 at age 19 walked from his home on that red dot, all the way to Moscow, determined to study science. Around 30 years later, he is alleged to have proven Venus has an atmosphere.
Lots of observers of this transit position themselves around the world:
"The viewing of the 1761 transit involved the effort of 120 observers from nine nations. Thomas Hornsby reported the observations as unsuccessful primarily due to poor weather conditions. He alerted the Royal Society in 1766 that preparations needed to begin for the 1769 transit." - wikipedia
Venus Atmosphere:
"The discovery of the planet’s atmosphere has long been attributed to the Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov, after he observed the 1761 transit from the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg."- wikipedia
Solidifying the Language:
In the year 1755 Samuel Johnson published the first extensive and strongest English dictionary to standardize and tame spellings of English words, so too did Lomonosov contribute to standardizing the Russian language.
"In 1755, Lomonosov wrote a grammar that reformed the Russian literary language by combining Church Slavonic with the vernacular tongue. To further his literary theories, he wrote more than 20 solemn ceremonial odes, notably the Evening Meditation on God's Grandeur. He applied an idiosyncratic theory to his later poems – tender subjects needed words containing the front vowel sounds E, I, Y and U, whereas things that may cause fear (like "anger", "envy", "pain" and "sorrow") needed words with back vowel sounds O, U and Y. That was a version of what is now called sound symbolism."
History of Russia:
"In 1760, Lomonosov published a history of Russia.[40][41] In addition, he attempted to write a grand Aeneid-inspired epic about Peter the Great, but he died before he could finish it.[42]" - wikipedia
Lomonosov and Venus:
Lomonosov’s Discovery of Venus Atmosphere in 1761: English Translation of Original Publication with Commentaries. Vladimir Shiltsev
Capt Cook and Venus 1769
Captain James Cook most noted for his exploits in the Pacific and his untimely end on the Sandwich Islands, now known as Hawaii, also gained experience and respect during the French and Indian War
Canada:
" . . . he took part in the major amphibious assault that captured the Fortress of Louisbourg from the French in 1758, and in the siege of Quebec City in 1759. Throughout his service he demonstrated a talent for surveying and cartography and was responsible for mapping much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege, thus allowing General Wolfe to make his famous stealth attack during the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham." - wikipedia.
Cook and the Venus Transit:
On 3 June 1769, navigator Captain James Cook, naturalist Joseph Banks, astronomer Charles Green and naturalist Daniel Solander recorded the transit of Venus from the island of Tahiti during Cook's first voyage around the world.[1]
During a transit, Venus appears as a small black disc travelling across the Sun. Transits of Venus occur in a pattern that repeats itself every 243 years, with two transits that are eight years apart, separated by breaks of 121.5 and 105.5 years. --- wikipedia
That's it.
That's our lead story.
Compiled by Jim Moyer 8/19/2024
Herschel and Uranus 1781
The year of Yorktown
History
Position of Uranus (marked with a cross) on 13 March 1781, the date of its discovery
Like the classical planets, Uranus is visible to the naked eye, but it was never recognised as a planet by ancient observers because of its dimness and slow orbit.[26] William Herschel first observed Uranus on 13 March 1781, leading to its discovery as a planet, expanding the known boundaries of the Solar System for the first time in history and making Uranus the first planet classified as such with the aid of a telescope. The discovery of Uranus also effectively doubled the size of the known Solar System because Uranus is around twice the distance from the Sun as the planet Saturn.
Discovery
William Herschel, discoverer of Uranus
Before its recognition as a planet, Uranus had been observed on numerous occasions, albeit generally misidentified as a star. The earliest possible known observation was by Hipparchus, who in 128 BC might have recorded it as a star for his star catalogue that was later incorporated into Ptolemy's Almagest.[27] The earliest definite sighting was in 1690, when John Flamsteed observed it at least six times, cataloguing it as 34 Tauri. The French astronomer Pierre Charles Le Monnier observed Uranus at least twelve times between 1750 and 1769,[28] including on four consecutive nights.
William Herschel observed Uranus on 13 March 1781 from the garden of his house at 19 New King Street in Bath, Somerset, England (now the Herschel Museum of Astronomy),[29] and initially reported it (on 26 April 1781) as a comet.[30] With a homemade 6.2-inch reflecting telescope, Herschel "engaged in a series of observations on the parallax of the fixed stars."[31][32]
Herschel recorded in his journal: "In the quartile near ζ Tauri ... either [a] Nebulous star or perhaps a comet."[33] On 17 March he noted: "I looked for the Comet or Nebulous Star and found that it is a Comet, for it has changed its place."[34] When he presented his discovery to the Royal Society, he continued to assert that he had found a comet, but also implicitly compared it to a planet:[31]
The power I had on when I first saw the comet was 227. From experience I know that the diameters of the fixed stars are not proportionally magnified with higher powers, as planets are; therefore I now put the powers at 460 and 932, and found that the diameter of the comet increased in proportion to the power, as it ought to be, on the supposition of its not being a fixed star, while the diameters of the stars to which I compared it were not increased in the same ratio. Moreover, the comet being magnified much beyond what its light would admit of, appeared hazy and ill-defined with these great powers, while the stars preserved that lustre and distinctness which from many thousand observations I knew they would retain. The sequel has shown that my surmises were well-founded, this proving to be the Comet we have lately observed.[31]
Herschel notified the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne of his discovery and received this flummoxed reply from him on 23 April 1781: "I don't know what to call it. It is as likely to be a regular planet moving in an orbit nearly circular to the sun as a Comet moving in a very eccentric ellipsis. I have not yet seen any coma or tail to it."[35]
Although Herschel continued to describe his new object as a comet, other astronomers had already begun to suspect otherwise. Finnish-Swedish astronomer Anders Johan Lexell, working in Russia, was the first to compute the orbit of the new object.[36] Its nearly circular orbit led him to the conclusion that it was a planet rather than a comet. Berlin astronomer Johann Elert Bode described Herschel's discovery as "a moving star that can be deemed a hitherto unknown planet-like object circulating beyond the orbit of Saturn".[37] Bode concluded that its near-circular orbit was more like a planet's than a comet's.[38]
The object was soon universally accepted as a new planet. By 1783, Herschel acknowledged this to Royal Society president Joseph Banks: "By the observation of the most eminent Astronomers in Europe it appears that the new star, which I had the honour of pointing out to them in March 1781, is a Primary Planet of our Solar System."[39] In recognition of his achievement, King George III gave Herschel an annual stipend of £200 (equivalent to £30,000 in 2023)[40] on condition that he moved to Windsor so that the Royal Family could look through his telescopes.[41]
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