Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.16467

    Diagrams to show how to determine the apparent least distance of the centres of celestial bodies

    Date
    1763
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p141
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (paper): 201mm
    width (paper): 310mm
    Description
    Method of calculation used to determine the parallax of the sun from various observations made of the transit of Venus in 1761. Used in James Short, ‘Second paper concerning the parallax of the Sun determined from the observations of the late transit of Venus, in which this subject is treated of more at length, and the quantity of the parallax more fully ascertained’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 53 (1763), pp. 300-45.
    Object history
    James Short, ‘Second paper concerning the parallax of the Sun determined from the observations of the late transit of Venus, in which this subject is treated of more at length, and the quantity of the parallax more fully ascertained’, Phil. Trans., vol. 53 (1763), pp. 300-45.
    Fig. 1: 'a method of determining the apparent least distance of the centres of the Sun and Venus from the observation of the total duration of the transit observed any one place, and also the geocentric least distance of centres' (p. 343).
    Fig. 2: 'a true and more ready method to find the geocentric least distance of the centres, consequently the apparent least distance of the centres at any place, where the total duration has been observed' (p. 344).
    Related fellows
    James Short (1710 - 1768, British) , Instrument maker
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