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
Lapwing (1769 EIC packet) Lapwing (1769 EIC packet) Lapwing was a packet ship that made two round-trips to India for the British East India Company (EAC). Currently, both her origin and her fate are obscure. Captain Henry Gardiner left The Downs on 6 June 1769, bound for Bengal and Madras. "Lapwing" left Kolkatta on 24 August 1770 and on 12 October was at Madras. She reached the Cape on 16 December and St Helena on 6 January 1771, and arrived back at The Downs on 16 April. "Lapwing" stopped at Falmouth before reaching The Downs and Captain Gardiner came overland to London. He brought