Top of page

Image Gallery

Many images depicting the Transit of Venus can be found in the collections of the Library of Congress. For this Web presentation, we selected several historic engravings and drawings as well as a printing of an article published by Benjamin Franklin in the journal of the Royal Society of London.

Web Page
James Ferguson, engraving from Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles..., 1790. [QB42.F18 1790 Toner Coll.] This image shows the locations from which the transit of Venus could be observed on June 6, 1761, and local times at which the transit began and ended.
Web Page
James Ferguson, engraving from Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles..., 1790. [QB42.F18 1790 Toner Coll.] The above illustration shows an orrery designed by Ferguson that would reproduce the movements of the planets Mercury, Venus and Earth. The display, however, does not represent the planetary positions on transit day, June 6, 1761, when Venus passed directly between Earth and the Sun.
Web Page
James Ferguson, engraving from Astronomy explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles..., 1790. [QB42.F18 1790 Toner Coll.] This image details the transit of Venus across the Sun on June 6, 1761, as viewed from London. Drawings such as this were the common means of rendering the transit in many books and journals of the time, prior to the advent of photographic techniques.
Web Page
La nature: revue des sciences et de leurs applications aux arts et à l'industrie, Dec. 1873 p.55 This illustration accompanies an article on the then-upcoming 1874 transit.
Web Page
Nicholas Ypey, Afbeelding van den weg der planeet Venus, 1761. [Rare Books, QB511.Y8] A beautiful drawing of the transit of Venus of 1761, by Nicholas Ypey. Although the coronal detail on the sun is not actually observable, the path of the transit is accurately depicted.
Web Page
Christian Mayer, Iz'iasnen ie prokhozhden..., [1769]. [Rare Books, QB511.M3 Yudin Collection] The location and path of the transit of Venus depends on your location on Earth. This drawing by Christian Mayer shows how the position of Venus would appear from various vantage points on Earth.

Collection Transit of Venus March