Transits of Venus (IAU C196): New Views of the Solar System and GalaxyIAU C196 coincided with the 8 June 2004 transit of Venus, producing the exciting, eclectic mix that can be found in these proceedings: the amazing history of the English North-country astronomers of the seventeenth century; the AU at a precision of 1.4 m; the explanation for the infamous black drop effect; a possible Mayan observation of a transit of Venus in the thirteenth century; the vexed question of leap seconds and time scales; history, distances, parallaxes, the solar system at exquisite precision and future space missions that will revolutionise astronomy. |
Contents
Jeremiah Horrockss Lancashire | 27 |
Venus transits A French view | 41 |
Observations of the 1761 and 1769 transits of Venus from Batavia | 67 |
Observations of planetary transits made in Ireland in the 18th Century and | 87 |
The American transit of Venus expeditions of 1874 and 1882 | 100 |
Maya observations of 13thcentury transits of Venus? | 124 |
Lord Lindsays expedition to Mauritius in 1874 | 138 |
other European astronomers not see the December 1639 transit of Venus? | 146 |
THE JEREMIAH HORROCKS | 313 |
The Pleiades question the definition of the zeroage main sequence and implica | 347 |
The distance to the Pleiades from the eclipsing binary HD 23642 | 361 |
Chromatic effects in Hipparcos parallaxes and implications for distance scale | 377 |
The use of eclipses in the evaluation of absolute stellar information | 386 |
High precision pulsar astrometry and its applications | 399 |
Statistical calibrations of trigonometric parallaxes | 411 |
Parallaxes of L and T dwarfs | 420 |
Nicole Capitaine | 162 |
Precision time and the rotation of the Earth | 180 |
Thomas Henderson and a Centauri | 198 |
Probing extrasolar planet atmospheres through transits | 220 |
The blackdrop effect explained | 242 |
a Hamiltonian approach | 263 |
constraints from asteroid and | 279 |
Classical and modern orbit determination for asteroids | 293 |
Patterns of occurrence and nearresonance phe | 304 |
Radial Velocities with Gaia | 444 |
Japan Astrometry Satellite Mission for INfrared Exploration | 455 |
Overall design of JASMINE | 469 |
The optical system for JASMINE and the CCD centroiding experiment | 476 |
JASMINE simulator | 483 |
a nano size astrometry satellite | 491 |
Venus in transit | 499 |
Common terms and phrases
2004 International Astronomical accuracy accurate angular asteroids astrometric Astron astronomical unit atmosphere Audiffredi basic angle binary bulge calibration catalogue century cluster Cook Crabtree diameter Díaz Covarrubias disc disk distance distribution dynamical Earth eclipse ephemerides error estimated expeditions Figure Gaia Galactic Galaxy Gascoigne ground-based Hoole Horrocks's instruments International Astronomical Union Japan JASMINE Jeremiah Horrocks Jupiter Kepler Kurtz leap seconds Leeuwen light curve Lomonosov longitude lunar magnitude Maskelyne mass Mayapan measurements Mercury method mission Moon MYLES STANDISH objects Observatory observe the transit obtained optical orbit ORCHISTON parameters period Perryman perturbations photometric Pingré pixel planetary planetary migration planets Pleiades position precision Proceedings IAU Colloquium proper motion pulsar radial velocity rotation Royal Society satellite scale scientific simulator solar parallax solar system space spacecraft stars stellar Table telescope transit of Venus University Venus transit VLBI