1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti while voyaging to (unsuccessfully) observe the 1761 Transit in Sumatra. Using the solar parallax values obtained from the 1769 transit, Hornsby wrote in "Philosophical Transitions" December 1771 that "the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun (is) 93,726,900 English miles." The radar-based value used today for the astronomical unit is . This is only a difference of eight-tenths of one percent. Considering what these astronomers had to work with, their results were "absolutely remarkable". 1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti On June 3, 1769, British navigator Captain James Cook, British naturalist Joseph Banks, British astronomer Charles Green and
Tahiti took over command. Gayangos set sail for Peru on 27 Jan, leaving the two friars, Father Geronimo Clota and Father Narciso Gonzalez, and Maximo Rodriguez and Francisco Perez, in charge of the Spanish mission. However, the Spanish mission on Tahiti was abandoned on 12 November 1775, after "Aguila"s third voyage to Tahiti, when the Fathers begged its commander, Don Cayetano de Langara, to take them back to Lima. Some maps still bear the name "Isla de Amat" for Tahiti, named after Viceroy Amat who ordered the expedition. A most notable result of these voyages was the journal by a marine