Show The Solar Parallax In the last number of the Sidereal Messenger an officially authorised statement is made of the personnel of the Transit of Venus parties of 1882 the number of observations made by each and the number 10f photographs taken of the sun with the planet projucted on the disc These photographs have all to be systematically measured with the utmost micrometric precision j j in order to determine the distance and I direction of the centre of the planets I plan-ets image from the centre of the suns disc The percentage of roes siirable photographs of the different parties averaged eighth Z except in one case j where the whole number canbe measured The euuimatLon of the1 work gives the following fig urea for the north and Bonth I phere parties Whole number of plates exposed 1700 number of plates that can be measured 2 I observations of the first contact 14 of the second 17 of the third 117 and of the fourth 17 11 i Andas the question is frequently asked When shall we get a result from this work we make the following fol-lowing extract Up to the present time the computers have read all measurable photographs obtained at Washington Cedar Keys and San Antonio and are now engaged on the Cerro Eoblero K negatives Considerable progress has also been made in the reductions based upon these measurements It is believed that the solar parallax paral-lax yielded by the transits of Venus of 1874 and 1882 must depend principally upon the photographs and when it is remembered that only 221 measurable photographs were obtained in 1874 the remarkable remark-able success of the operations ef last December when 13S2 were obtained ob-tained will be apparent If no unforeseen un-foreseen delay occurs probably the definitive result from the photographs photo-graphs of both transits can be arrived ar-rived at in four yearsSan Francisco Fran-cisco Bulletin |