Search results for "Venuksen transitio"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
A voyage to Vardø - A scientific account of an unscientific expedition
2013
After the “Venus Transit Conference” that took place at the University of Tromsø from June 2 to June 3, 2012, participants were given the opportunity to either stay in Tromsø until the night of June 5–6, or to participate in a voyage to Finnmark, where the historical sites Vardø, Hammerfest, and the North Cape were to be visited. This voyage culminated in the observation of the 2012 transit of Venus at Vardø. This paper gives a detailed account of this voyage that lasted from June 3 to June 6, and emphasizes the historical, scientific, philosophical, educational and cultural involvement of the participants of the voyage and of the local population. The paper concludes with reflections on th…
The amateur astronomer Anders Hellant and the plight of his observations of the transits of Venus in Tornio, 1761 and 1769
2013
Anders Hellant was a versatile Swedish amateur scientist whose figure dominated eighteenth century intellectual life in Tornio, his little home town of some 500 inhabitants at the mouth of the Tornio river. My study is mainly based on the biographies published in Finnish (Bostr¨om 1918) and in Swedish (Tob´e 1991) but I have also consulted some original sources in Paris and in Stockholm. Hellant incarnated almost all by himself the inquiring scientific spirit of the Age of Enlightenment in Swedish Lapland. There is much to be said about his life and works, but here I focus on his observations of the Venus passages in 1761 and 1769. peerReviewed