Jeremiah Horroxs (Horrocks is a later spelling), 1617 to 1641, was born at Toxteth Park, near Liverpool, England He became a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, 1632 - 16 35, and  was ordained curate at Much Hoole, Cheshire, 1639.  His astronomical work included working with planetary and lunar puterbations, calculations of solar parallax and work on lunar theories, tides of tides and the motions of Jupiter and Saturn.  His untimely death, at age 22 years, cut short a promising career, at the time of the English Revolution.

Horrocks wrote of his Telescope ...
This prying tube too shews fair Venus' form
Clad in the vestments of her borrowed light,
While the unworthy fraud her cresent horn
Betrays.  Though bosomed in the solar beams
And by their blaze o'erpowered, it brings to view
Hermes and Venus from concealed retreats;
With daring gaze it penetrates the veil
Which shrouds the mighty ruler of the skies,
And searches all his secret laws.  O! power
Alone that rivalest Promethean deeds!
Lo, the pure guide to truth's ingenious sons!
Where'er the zeal of youth shall scan the heavens,
O may they cherish thee above the blind
Conceits of men, and wild seas of error
Learning marvels of this mighty Tube! (2)

This young curate of Much Hoole, near Preston, Cheshire, was an amateur astronomer of genius, who first predicted the transit* of Venus in front the sun, through mathematical calculation and Kepler's writings concerning planetary motions.  He calculated the transit of Venus from Kepler's Rudolphine Tables, which  had overlooked the event.  He shared his enthusiasm for observing the transit with a friend in Salford, near Manchester, a draper named William Crabtree.  When the time for the transit of Venus came, at 10:00 AM, on Sunday, November 24 (O.S.) 1639, both astronomers prepared their instruments to observe the event as a safely projected image in a darkened room (no mylar, solar filters in those days!).  Horrocks and Crabtree were the only men to observe the event, with Crabtree's wife and child also possible observers, as recorded above, in the drawing from Manchester City.  [Notice the use of multiple imagery to record the event.]

Horrocks made the discovery that different paths of Venus across the face of Sun would be visible from different locations and yield information, with clock and telescope, from which the Earth to Sun distance could be calculated.  The principle required accurate timing and measurment to yield displacement angles between two observing stations and from the parallax derive actual distances.  The relative scale of the orbits of Venus and Earth were already known from timing of orbital periods (Kepler).  Horrocks' observations gave information about the relative scale of size (diameter) of Venus compared to the sun.  His transit information led ultimately to the calculation of a scale model of the Solar System, however, that required careful observations made 122 years later (1761) when 176 astronomers, at 117 stations around the Earth, gave attention to observing the next transit of Venus. (3)

Crabtree was prevented from seeing much of the transit, as clouds obscured his view until late in the afternoon.  He was so in awe of what he saw, that he forgot to record his observations by tracing the projected images on paper, as Horrocks had done.  He also did not record times for his sighting of the moment of contact of the planet's image at egress- data that could have enabled calculations of the actual distance from Earth to Sun when used in concert with Horrocks' data.

Horrocks was more fortunate, with respect to cloud cover, and began to make notes in his diary.  He was then called away to more "important business", presumably to attend to his duties in the local church.  He returned to observe the event in mid transit and recorded details of the sight, noting angles of inclination of the path across the sun, the apparent diameter of Venus and the various distances from the centre of Venus to the centre of the sun at progressive intervals. He was unable to record times of  ingress and egress, it appears.

The 1761 observations moved Western, planetery science ahead, standing on the shoulders of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Horrocks.  The British expedition was led by Mason and Dixon (yes, of the Mason-Dixon Line fame) and headed for Sumatra.  After their port of destination was seized by the French (Britain and France were at it, in the Seven Years War, at the time), they made observations from Cape Town, Sth Africa.  The French scientist, Guillaume Legentil, had less success, sailing for Pondicherry, India, and missing the transit on account of the war and shipping delays.  He tried again at the 1769 transit event.

Legentil's success in 1769 was disasterous, with cloud obscuring his view.  He was shipwrecked twice on his way home and arrived in Paris to find himself already declared dead, his university post given to someone esle and his estates being prepared for distribution among his heirs!

The 1769 event saw Lt. James Cook, Carl Solander, Joseph Banks and Charles Green in action in Tahitii, with Cook, Solander and Green making the actual measurements for the British Royal Society.  The French made their observations from Baja California, through the Jean Chappe d'Auteroche expedition.  Like Cook, they made successful observations in ideal conditions, and the observations records made it back to Paris, regardless of the death of all the entire expedition except for Pauly, the engineer.  By comparison, Cook lost Chas. Green to illness on his return voyage from Australia. Of course, the Australian link was formed after this event, when Cook sailed in search of Terra Australis Incognita and claimed New Zealand and New South Wales for George III and Britain.  This led to the founding of colonies in both places.

By the time the next transit occurred in 1874, Henry Chamberlain Russell, NSW Government Astronomer observed from Sydney and three other stations in Goulburn, the Blue Mountains and Eden.  His colleagues included Professor Archibald Liversidge (Sydney University) and P. F. Adams, the Surveyor-General.  From their data and other measurements, the Earth - Sun  distance was calculted with great accuracy, by Simon Newcomb.  Unfortunately, at the time of the 1882 transi,t the growing scientific prowess of the Colony was blocked by clouds and Russell made no observations.  Interest had waned somewhat.

Of the recent transit of Venus (June 8, 2004), I was intrigued by the marvellous site.  OK, it had been a great few months, astronomically, with two easily observed comets within my viewing range, at the same time! A solar eclipse! a meteor shower! and Venus visible as a thin cresent as it switched from Evening Star apparition to Morning Star and its maximun brightness added great interest!  There was much to come, with Venus in solar transit, and the promise of arrival of the Cassini Space Craft at Saturn. 

I was gazing across the space within Earth's orbit to a spot on Sun where the intervening body of Venus sat in silhouette, a precise, triple alignment of Earth-bound eye and mind with Venus and Sun.  Through my mylar filter, I could see across 150 million kilometres of space within the Solar System, to see a small, dark disc slowly moving across the face of Sun upper right to left by direct view and inverted in projected images.  I saw the famous "black droplet" effect at ingress and at the same time spotted a solar flare or solar prominence arching from the solar disk near the point of ingress.  There was a hint of atmosphere around Venus, clearly visible, and a faint halo surrounded that image.  At mid-transit, clouds obscured the view.

I often gaze at Sun's bright planetary companions and try to imagine my position in the Solar System.  On this occasion, comprehension of place and space broke into my consciousness, a serendipitous moment of awareness, awakening wonderment and awe.  I did not need to invoke a god to comprehend the wonder or the event.