Transit of Venus

09 June 2004

About 250 people attended a rare daytime astronomy event at UNSW, held to mark this week's Transit of Venus.

Hosted by the Faculty of Science, the event gave members of the public the opportunity to use one of four telescopes from the School of Physics, set up on the balcony of the Tyree Room in the Scientia Building, to watch the first transit in living memory. Master of ceremonies was media personality Jennifer Byrne.

Associate Professor Michael Burton of the School of Physics described the astronomy surrounding the transit, showing how the techniques used to observe the transit first enabled the distance to be measured from the Earth to the Sun, leading today to measurements embracing the scale of the entire universe.

Professor John Gascoigne, head of the School of History, recounted how Captain Cook sailed to the South Seas in the Endeavour specifically to observe the 1769 transit, then sailed on to chart New Zealand and the east coast of Australia - making a unique historical link between astronomy and the birth of modern Australia.

Dean of Science Professor Mike Archer in a speech titled "It's life, Jim, but not as we know it" documented the reactions of early Europeans to Australia's "weird and wonderful" flora and fauna.