Transit of Venus March
Image Gallery
Many images depicting the Transit of Venus can be found in the collections of the Library of Congress. For this Web presentation, we selected several historic engravings and drawings as well as a printing of an article published by Benjamin Franklin in the journal of the Royal Society of London.
James Ferguson, engraving from Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles..., 1790. [QB42.F18 1790 Toner Coll.]
This image shows the locations from which the transit of Venus could be observed on June 6, 1761, and local times at which the transit began and ended.
James Ferguson, engraving from Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles..., 1790. [QB42.F18 1790 Toner Coll.]
This image details the transit of Venus across the Sun on June 6, 1761, as viewed from London. Drawings such as this were the common means of rendering the transit in many books and journals of the time, prior to the advent of photographic techniques.
Nicholas Ypey, Afbeelding van den weg der planeet Venus, 1761. [Rare Books,
QB511.Y8]
A beautiful drawing of the transit of Venus of
1761, by Nicholas Ypey. Although the coronal
detail on the sun is not actually observable,
the path of the transit is accurately depicted.
"Observations of the Transit of Venus over the Sun, June 3, 1769, made by Mr. Owen Biddle and Mr. Joel Bayley, at Lewestown, in Pennsylvania. Communicated by Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., F.R.S." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1769. Vol. 59 pp 414-21.
In 1769 Benjamin Franklin published an article in the prestigious journal of the Royal Society of London presenting the transit of Venus observations of Messrs. Biddle and Bayley. Some historians credit this account from pre-revolutionary America as the first occasion on which American science went on display before the international community, an occasion made all the more propitious for involving a natural phenomenon that galvanized international attention in the scientific community. This journal edition contains, as well, numerous other articles from contributors worldwide regarding the transit of Venus of 1769.