Captain Cook and the transit of Venus
In 1768 Captain James Cook (1728-1779) was
sent by the Royal Society and the Admiralty in a ship called
the Endeavour to observe the 1769 transit of Venus from the Pacific
island of Tahiti. The intention was to refine the estimate of
the distance of the Sun. Cook and the astronomer Charles Green observed the transit from the
island’s northernmost point, still known as Point Venus.
From Tahiti, Cook went on to circumnavigate New Zealand and
landed in eastern Australia at what is now known as Botany Bay.
Captain Cook bicentenary (New Zealand,
1969)
New Zealand issued a set of four stamps to
commemorate the bicentenary of Captain James Cook’s first
voyage to the South Pacific. The lowest-value member of the
set, pictured above, depicts Cook himself, the 1769 transit of
Venus across the Sun, and an octant (a navigational instrument,
forerunner of the sextant) superimposed on the latitude line of
40 degrees. An undiscovered continent, Terra Incognita, was
thought by some to lie south of this, but Cook proved that such
a continent did not exist. The other stamps in the set show the
naturalist Joseph Banks and HMS
Endeavour (6c); the botanist Dr
Daniel Solander and the plant Rhabdothamnus
solandri (18c); and
Cook’s 1769 chart of New Zealand (28c).
Stanley Gibbons no. 906
Captain Cook bicentenary (Norfolk Island,
1969)
Norfolk Island commemorated the bicentenary
of Cook’s observation of the transit of Venus from Tahiti
with this stamp, which depicts the track of Venus across the
Sun superimposed on the Pacific Ocean. The lettering along the
line of the transit says “Transit of Venus Tahiti 3rd
June 1769”. The instrument shown at top right is a
quadrant made by John Bird, used by the expedition for finding
latitude and checking time.
Norfolk Island itself was not discovered by
Cook until 1774 during his second expedition to the South
Pacific and is now a dependency of Australia.
Stanley Gibbons no. 99
A modern-day artist’s impression of
the observation of the 1769 transit of Venus from Tahiti by
Cook and the astronomer Charles Green on
a stamp from the Pacific islands of Tuvalu issued in 1979, the
bicentenary of Cook’s death. Green is presumably intended
to be the kneeling figure looking through the telescope, which
was a 4-inch Gregorian-style reflector made by James Short,
magnifying 140 times. It is screwed to the top of a
ship’s keg filled with wet sand, providing a simple but
stable mounting. In reality, Cook and Green observed
simultaneously through identical telescopes while Daniel
Solander, the naturalist, used a third telescope of higher
magnification.
The observers are thought to have used dark
coloured eyepiece filters to dim the Sun’s light. The
telescope mirrors of the day were of metal rather than silvered
glass as now, and so were less reflective, but this is most
assuredly not the recommended way to observe the Sun. This
stamp should come with a health warning!
Stanley Gibbons no. 125