Thomas Wright

Thomas Wright's 1769 transit observations at Île aux Coudres, Lower Canada

Thomas Wright published his successful transit observations, complete with a full disc image of the course of Venus on the Sun, and sunspots, in the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions, vol. 59 (1769), 273-280. This is a recreation of an 18th-century manuscript copy of his report. Image courtesy of Specula astronomica minima (©Specula astronomica minima).

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Thomas Wright's 1769 ToV observing station at Île aux Coudres, Lower Canada

Thomas Wright, Deputy Surveyor of the Northern District of America, observed the 1769 transit of Venus successfully from Île aux Coudres in the Saint Lawrence River, Quebec. The quality of his observations was praised by the Astronomer Royal, the Rev'd Neville Maskelyne, in the pages of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions. Unbeknownst to both Wright and Maskelyne, the Île aux Coudres transit station was slap in the middle of an ancient meteorite impact site, the Charlevoix crater. This drawing is a recreation of the island site in 1769.

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