Historical Piquancy

Observing

Venus transit has been observed in years 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and 2004 since invention of the telescope. I offer you a few curiosities:

	Johanes Kepler was the first to successfully predicted Mercury and Venus transit (coincidence both transitions were in the same year 1631).
	Famous sea-farer James Cook put out under mask of astronomy on ship Endeavour. Sea-voyage didn´t have a specifically astronomic meaning. It concerned reinforcing England and newly discovered territories.
	Astronomers wanted to scale attentively Venus transit. Namely they could work out distance Earth-Sun with help of the Kepler´s third law. Time measurements were incorrect, that is why they gave this way up.

Sad Story

Story of French astronomer Le Gentil (means lovely) is more than tragic. He put off to India because of Venus transit, which was in 1761. He had to go through the whole phenomenon on board a ship because of a war aganist England. He took no notes from observation. They could haurbour shortly afterwards. Disappointed Le Gentil decided to wait 8 years for the next one. He waited in this exotic countryside. It seemed to be hopefully few days away. There was clear weather and no rain. But it was cloudy on D-Day and he didn´t see it. It was possible to see it from not so far isles where his assistant was. It was clear to him, that he couldn´t wait for the next one. He would had to wait 105 years! He got back to Paris, but bad luck didn´t forsake him. Nobody heard from him several years so justice pronounced him as dead. While greedy for money relatives divided his "legacy", his wife had a new husband. He was replaced at work too.  Probably he lost everything. He saw out his life solitary. He died soon.