More About the Double Transit of Venus

The Teaching Company publishes Brilliant College Lectures about all kinds of heady stuff. I've ordered a few of their lectures, listened to even fewer of the lectures, and hate to think how little I understood. This means that they send me their brochures which advertise all their other lectures. Today I received a Science and Mathematics catalog with an excerpt from the Series: "Understanding the Universe, 2d Ed." by Brilliant College Lecturer, Alex Filippenko. It discusses how Astronomers first learned to measure the Universe from observations made during the Double Venus Cycles in 1761 and 1769 when Venus passed in front of the Sun. Here's a quote:

"A key to getting the distance scale was a transit of Venus across the face of the Sun. This is kind of a rare event. It happens about eight years apart, and then not for over another century. It happened in 2004, and it'll happen again in 2012. But prior to that, it last happened in the late 19th century; and prior to that, it happened in 1761 and 1769. Those two transits provided a key to the determination of the physical length of the the astronomical unit." www.TEACH12.com (1-800-832-2412).

This is awesome. Venus is equated with methods of proportion, measurement, and scale. Her Cycle is 8 years long and is made of of 5 retrograde stations that repeat themselves on almost the same spots in every cycle. As I learned in the Abelard & Heloise blog, these double transits are sometimes thought to bring power to women in society. But Venus is also associated with the Golden Mean in Art and Balance and Harmony. It's so appropriate that this information about measuring distance in the Universe would come from observing her during one of these double whammy transits.

I took a look at the people who made these observations. They English Explorers who had to, of course, get the Hell out of England in order to see the sky. Both men responsible were born in 1728. That's interesting to look at for outer planet placements. They both had Neptune in Gemini. Captain Cook's Neptune was within orb of the Sun-Venus conjunction which he observed. Both men felt they hadn't found the information they were looking for at the time. Very Neptunian. Also interesting because many people feel that Neptune is the upper octave of Venus.

The first set was a pair of surveyors/astronomers (how appropriate for Venus):

Charles Mason
b. April, 1728 Gloucestershire, England

ARGGGHHHH! No DATE!!!! And a Mars in Virgo, fie!

Sun Aries or Taurus; Mercury Aries Rx or not; Venus Pisces or Aries; Mars Virgo; Jupiter Taurus or Gemini; Saturn 24-26 Aquarius; Uranus 22-21 Scorpio Rx; Neptune 7-8 Gemini; Pluto 7-6 LibraRx; NN 13-11 Pisces Rx; Chiron 17-19 Aries.

It would be interesting if Venus were conjunct Mason's Sun in his natal chart which reflects in the transits that he observed.

Jeremiah Dixon
b. July 27, 1733 Cockfield, County Durham, England

Sun 5 Leo; Moon Aquarius; NN 30 Scorpio

These are the actual Surveyors who measured out the Dixon-Mason line in the U.S. that separates the Red Coats from the Blue Coats in the U.S. Dixon worked as an assistant to Mason on the Venus observation thing. They both observed the first pass of Venus in front of the Sun in 1761 down in Cape Town, Africa. Then they buzzed up to the States, measured off the land. Charles Mason worked alone from an Observatory set up in Caran, County Donegal, Ireland in 1769. They/he spent months observing the sky before and after the transit.

According to Richard Nolle's site (www. astropro.com/features/tables), these are the dates for the conjunctions: Notice that Pluto is in Sagittarius and then Capricorn. Pluto is having a return for this Double Venus transit as well!!!!!! (I'm stoked.)

June 6, 1761 5:39 AM GMT? 15 GE 36 Venus Rx

Stellium in Gemini of NN-Mars-Mercury-Sun-Venus (1-17 Gemini) as Apex of a small triangle to Moon in Leo trine amazing conjunction in Aries of Jupiter 1 Aries-Uranus 9 Aries-Saturn 10 Aries. Pluto in Sagittarius.

June 3, 1769 10:02 PM GMT? 13 GE 27 Venus Rx

Applying New Moon! Moon 8 Gemini, Venus and Sun at 14 Gemini
Pluto in Capricorn opposite Saturn in Cancer.
Jupiter in Scorpio opposite Uranus in Taurus.

The other explorer was the famous explorer/navigator/cartographer Captain Cook who observed the 2d pass from Tahiti:

Captain James Cook
b. Oct. 27, 1728 11:27am Marton, England (from Astrotheme)

Sun 5 Scorpio; ASC 24 Sagittarius; Moon 22 Leo; MC 30 Libra; NN 30 Aquarius Rx

This is an exciting chart. I was hoping Venus would be prominent in these charts and this one certainly is. It is conjunct Mercury and Uranus in Scorpio to the Degree. This conjunction is apex to a t-square, squaring Moon opposite Saturn in Aquarius and is sesqui-square Jupiter in Cancer. In 1769, Jupiter was passing through Scorpio and was widely within orb of conjunction with natal Venus-Mercury-Uranus.