Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Part I The magic and history of eclipses
- Part II Observing solar eclipses
- Part III Eclipses of the Moon
- Part IV Occultations
- Part V Transits
- 16 Transits: when planets cross the Sun
- Part VI My favorite eclipses
- Appendices
- A Solar and lunar eclipses due between 2010 and 2024
- B A glossary of appropriate terms
- C Resources
- Index
16 - Transits: when planets cross the Sun
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Part I The magic and history of eclipses
- Part II Observing solar eclipses
- Part III Eclipses of the Moon
- Part IV Occultations
- Part V Transits
- 16 Transits: when planets cross the Sun
- Part VI My favorite eclipses
- Appendices
- A Solar and lunar eclipses due between 2010 and 2024
- B A glossary of appropriate terms
- C Resources
- Index
Summary
The intrinsic interest of the phenomenon, its rarity, the fulfillment of the prediction, the noble problem which the transit of Venus helps us to solve, are all present to our thoughts when we look at this pleasing picture, a repetition of which will not occur again until the flowers are blooming in the June of A.D. 2004.
(Robert Staywell Ball, “The Transit of December 6, 1882,” in Eli Maor's Venus in Transit, 2000, p. 139)Venus is a bigger and closer world to us than is Mercury. Looking like a small sunspot slowly poking its way across the Sun, Mercury would be tough to detect at sunrise. Transits of Mercury are rare; last century there were only 13. I missed transits like the one on May 9, 1970. The last one, in November 1999, was visible from our home in Arizona but we were on the Mediterranean Sea hoping to see a bright display of Leonid meteors. Finally, since this year's transit would be completed before sunrise from Arizona, I had to travel toward the east coast of North America to see it.
On the evening of Monday, May 5, a group of visitors on a tour of Arizona stopped by at our home for an evening of observing. A few hours later, with three hours of sleep early in the morning of Tuesday, May 6, I headed off to Montreal. Although the weather seemed good most of the way there, the plane landed in a steady drizzle that persisted well into the evening.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- David Levy's Guide to Eclipses, Transits, and Occultations , pp. 141 - 148Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010