Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Summary of the Chapters
1. The Precedent: Transit of Venus Expeditions in 1761 and 1769
The Historical Precedent
2. Big Science in Britain c. 1815-70
The Magnetic Crusades: The Bigger Science Between the Two Transits
Admiralty Science and the Reform Movement
Airy's Greenwich and its Place in the Historiography
3. Noble Science, Noble Nation: The Establishment of Transit Programmes in Britain and Abroad
Edward Stone, the Black Drop Effect and the Transit of Mercury in 1868
The Transit Proposal in Parliament
The International Picture: Transit Programmes Abroad
Situating the Observation Stations
Britain's Scientific Honour, the Press and the Airy-Proctor Debate
4. Inside Greenwich: The Preparations for 1874
Warren De La Rue and the Photographic Plan
Precision Astronomical Photography in the Wet-Plate Era
Programme Design as a National Product
The Telescopic Plan: Modelling the Transit of Venus
Artificial Black Drop Experiments
Training the Observers
Model Training versus Personal Equation Measures
The International Melee
5. The Expeditions
Establishing the Observation Stations: The Case of Cairo
Environment, Local Time and Latitude: Work Routines at the Stations
Longitude Experiments
Lindsay and Gill's Chronometric Trials
Browne's Experiment in Submarine Telegraphy
The Day of the Transit: 8-9 December 1874
The Transit of Venus Observed in Cairo
Worldwide Spectacle: The Day of the Transit in the Press
6. The Outcome
Airy's International Proposal for Reducing the Observations
Calculating Parallax in 1874 versus 1769
The Plan to Measure the Photographs
The Mist of Words
Financial Crisis
'Casting' Phases and 'Doctoring' Results
Deciding that Photography had Failed
The Official Publication and the Retirement of the Astronomer Royal
Outcomes and Results Beyond Greenwich
Measurement in Late Victorian Science
National Science, Growth and Progress
Epilogue: The Transit of 1882
Change of Leadership and Loss of Resources
The Question of International Cooperation
The New Instructions to Observers
The Longitude Work and the Loss of Admiralty Patronage
The Expeditions
The Outcome
The Transit Enterprise, International Cooperation and Precision Astronomical Photography
Notes
Works Cited
Index