Ok, a lot of us missed the eclipse. I thought it might help to put it in perspective if we recalled the story of the Frenchman Le Gentil.

Transits of Venus across the Sun occur in pairs spaced 8 years apart with about 120 years between each pair of transits. So there is a transit of Venus coming up in June 2004 and there will be another in June 2012. The last transits of Venus occurred in December 1874 and December 1882. So you can see that Transits of Venus are a rather special event.

Le Gentil wanted to observe the transits of 1761 and 1769 from India. Unfortunately for Le Gentil, the British took over India just before he planned to land and set up for his Transit observation of 1761. So he was forced to attempt to observe the Transit from the ship he was on. In 1769, he was allowed to set up for the Transit, and the day of the transit began with promising clear skys. Apparently shortly before the transit began clouds blocked his view of the Sun and shortly after the transit ended the clouds rolled out of the way. One account I read indicated that it took Le Gentil 2 weeks after the 1769 transit before he could put pen to paper to describe what had happened.

Here's hoping we all have better luck in 2004!

I remember reading an article about Le Gentil that concluded "he returned to France and spent the rest of his life a sullen and morose man." No surprise there.

There's even been a play written about his experiences.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Thanks ToSeek! Has anybody ever seen the play?

There is a nice description of Le Gentil's story here: http://www-astronomy.mps.ohio-state..../venussun.html