Transit of Venus: Contact Observations at the Melbourne Observatory.

Scarce engraving of the Melbourne Observatory observing the Transit of Venus which took place on 9 December 1874 (01:49 to 06:26 UTC) . This was the first of the pair of transits of Venus that took place in the c.19th, with the second transit occurring eight years later in 1882. The previous pair of transits had taken place in 1761 and 1769 and which Cook’s first expedition was sent by the Royal Society to observe at Tahiti.

From the original edition of the Australasian Sketcher.