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.
For more about Cook, Green and the transit see James Cook’s 1769 transit of Venus expedition to Tahiti by Wayne Orchiston.
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
Captain Cook bicentenary (Tuvalu, 1979)
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
