Tahiti becomes a transit observing site

NASA's UTC catalog dates the transit to 6 June; some observers described it as 5 June in their local time.

Teams at widely separated sites recorded the transit to help estimate the Earth–Sun distance.

Astronomers sought to compare the instants when Venus crossed the solar limb across different locations.

The indistinct contact of Venus with the solar edge complicated the measurements made at this transit.

Cook and Green recorded the transit from Tahiti during an international observing campaign.

Cook and Green's drawings helped document the event and the difficulty of timing its edge.

Observations from Tahiti were compared with observations elsewhere to estimate the scale of the solar system.

He recorded a small object in Gemini, at first thinking it might be a comet.

Later observations showed that Herschel's object was a planet beyond Saturn.

The first modern discovery of a planet began with this observation.