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
1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti was so sharp that it was taken from the official proceedings of the Society. Green was not given the opportunity to personally present his own data nor could he defend himself. Halley's 1716 article called for observers to witness the transit at various places on the globe. The response from the scientific community was astounding. There were at least 120 observers at sixty-two individual posts for the 1761 transit. Observations took place not only in Europe, but also included Calcutta, Tobolsk, Siberia, the Cape of Good Hope, and St. John's in Newfoundland. The 1769 viewing also proved to be a