1283 TRANSIT of VENUS

Visibility

Venus crossed the disc of the Sun on 1283 May 23^rd. The map above shows the visibility of the event. The entire transit could have been seen from the northern part of Russia, Scandinavia, northern and western Europe including the British Isles, western parts of Africa, and the Americas except the south-western part of Alaska. The Sun set while the transit was in progress in the grey area encompassing western Asia, the Middle East, Africa except the western part and south-eastern Europe. The Sun rose while the transit was in progress in the grey area taking in the islands of the central Pacific Ocean, the Hawaiian Islands, the south-western part of Alaska and south-eastern Siberia. The yellow lines on the diagram show the position of the terminator, where the Sun is either rising or setting, at the key phases of the transit.

Geocentric Circumstances

The geocentric circumstances of the transit are shown in the diagram to the right. During the transit, the diameter of the Sun is 1889.4 arcseconds and that of Venus is 57.7 arcseconds. In other words, the diameter of Venus is 0.03 that of the Sun, making it look like a rapidly moving sunspot. The minimum separation between the centre of the solar disc and Venus was around 733.7 arcseconds. The whole transit lasts just over five and a quarter hours.

All timings are given in Universal Time (UT).

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HM Nautical Almanac Office UK Hydrographic Office E-mail: hmnao@nao.rl.ac.uk Last revision was made on 2007 November 5