Talk:1874 transit of Venus

Assorted sources

A variety of sources to be used to reference this article, and items to find references for:

• Rodriguez expedition included Lord Lindsay
• Kerguelen expeditions included Lieutenant Coke and Stephen Joseph Perry
• Japan expedition included Jules Janssen
• Henry Chamberlain Russell's book: 'Observations on the transit of Venus, 9 December 1874: made at stations in New South Wales' - see http://purl.library.usyd.edu.au/sup/9781920899905 (Transit of Venus 1874, HC Russell, Sydney University Press, ISBN: 9781920899905)
• James Francis Tennant made observations
• Account of Hawaii expedition at: http://archive.org/details/accountofobserva00airyrich
• http://tasphotos.blogspot.co.uk/2006/10/us-transit-of-venus-expedition-1874.html
• http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/event/images-1874-transit-venus-expedition
• Commons has an image category
• Some more pictures:
  • http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/transits-of-venus-since-1631/
  • http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/transit-of-venus-6-june-2012/
  • http://transits.mhs.ox.ac.uk/search/index.php?searchterm=1874&anyall=any&submit=yes&current_page=1
• Transitofvenus.nl site:
  • http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/past-transits/1874-december-9/
  • http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/tag/1874/
  • http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/tag/1874/page/2/
  • http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/tag/1874/page/3/
• http://www.transitofvenus.org/history/1874-1882
• http://www.ras.org.uk/library/171-miscellaneous/73-transits-of-venus-1874-a-1882
• http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1875MNRAS..35..317R
• http://www7.nationalacademies.org/archives/Transit_of_Venus.html
• The American transit of Venus expeditions of 1874 and 1882 by Steven J. Dick (2004), published in 'Transits of Venus: New Views of the Solar System and Galaxy', Proceedings IAU Colloquium No. 196, 2004, D.W. Kurtz, ed.
• http://aas.org/archives/BAAS/v27n4/aas187/S035002.html
• http://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2012/06/transit-of-venus-the-unsung-heroes/
• http://www.melbourneobservatory.com/19thCentury.htm
• http://www.imcce.fr/vt2004/en/fiches/fiche_n21_eng.html (long list)
• http://www.lindseywilliams.org/index.htm?LAL_Archives/Venus_Transitory_Transit.htm~mainFrame (US details, including: "In the United States [...] five by the Naval Observatory, three by the U.S. Geodetic Survey." and "When the great event came, the United States launched 8 expeditions, Russia 26, Britain 12, France and Germany six each, Italy three and Holland one." and it also names the ships used to transport the 8 US expeditions: the USS Swatara (1873) and the USS Kearsarge (1861))

Lots more, but the above is a start. Carcharoth (talk) 08:25, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I was going to add some stuff myself but I don't really want to do it until you've put in the references for what's already there as it will get more and more difficult to sort out what's been referenced and what hasn't. Richerman (talk) 08:37, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm going to work on this for about an hour or two. I'll try and remember to leave a note on your talk page after that, and you can then add more. Carcharoth (talk) 08:43, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

That's ok, no need for a note, I'll have a look later. Richerman (talk) 08:45, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Additional notes

Might return to this again later, but here are some notes for now on some of what still needs doing:

• (1) The source used for many of the rudimentary details was this page, which should really be replaced by published details (there will be published details out there for all these expeditions). Some of the entries on that last are sourced, but some aren't (and some are incomplete as the French entry fails to mention Saigon and the US entry fails to mention the expedition led by Asaph Hall to Vladivostok). The sources provided there could be used, or others could be found. I only mentioned nationality and location, but names of astronomers leading the expedition should also be mentioned. My aim was to do this at the same time as bringing in other sources, but haven't got that far yet.
• (2) Some bits still unsourced. A source is needed for the US expedition to Vladivostok, for the '350 photographic plates' bit (this is around in a few sources, such as this), for the Tacchini expedition to India, for the sentence on Russian expeditions, and for the sentence on the Mexican expeditions (a link is in the external links, but a better one can probably be found). Also, the sentence about Campbell in Thebes is unsourced.
• (3) The final paragraph also needs some work, and lots more can be added to the article as well (many of the sources above haven't been used yet, and there are others that can be used as well, I haven't really looked properly in the ADS yet).
• (4) Something on the theories and methods used to calculate the AU from the results would be good. There were at least two methods being used, maybe more. Some, as far as I can make out, involved measuring different things, or slightly different things.

The notes above refer to this version of the article. Carcharoth (talk) 13:48, 15 June 2012 (UTC)