The transit of Venus enterprise in Victorian Britain

the long version

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the British Government spent a vast amount of money measuring the distance between the earth and the sun using observations of the transit of Venus. Hundreds of expeditions were organized by countries across the globe to collect data on the transits of 1874 and 1882, using the most up-to-date astronomical instruments and new photographic methods. Ratcliff presents a clear and compelling narrative of the two Victorian transit programmes. She draws out their cultural significance and explores the nature of 'big science' in late-Victorian Britain.