Post by Tringa on Nov 23, 2017 13:37:19 GMT
A certain times of the year I sometimes bemoan my luck in failing to see a meteor shower. While I have seen a quite a few sporadic meteors I have never managed to see a shower. However, I saw this on another forum and it is really bad luck -
Guillaume Le Gentil (1725 - 1792)
Guillaume Le Gentil was part of the international collaborative project organized to measure the distance to the Sun, by observing the 1761 transit of Venus from different points on the earth.
He set out from Paris in March 1760, and reached Isle de France (now Mauritius) in July. However, war had broken out between France and Britain in the meantime, hindering further passage east. He finally managed to gain passage on a frigate that was bound for India's Coromandel Coast, and he sailed in March 1761 with the intention of observing the transit from Pondicherry - a French possession in India.
The ship was blown off-course by unfavorable winds and spent five weeks at sea. By the time it finally got close to Pondicherry, the captain learned that the British had occupied the city, so the frigate was obliged to return to Isle de France. When 6 June came the sky was clear, but the ship was still at sea, and he could not take astronomical observations with the vessel rolling about. After having come this far, he thought he might as well await the next transit of Venus, which would come in another eight years (they are relatively infrequent, occurring in pairs 8 years apart, but each such pair is separated from the previous and next pairs by more than a century.)
He decided to record the 1769 transit from Manila in the Philippines. Encountering hostility from the Spanish authorities there, he headed back to Pondicherry, which had been restored to France by peace treaty in 1763, where he arrived in March 1768. He built a small observatory and waited patiently. At last, the day in question (4 June 1769) arrived, but although the mornings in the preceding month had all been lovely, on this day the sky became overcast, and Le Gentil saw nothing. The misfortune drove him to the brink of insanity, but at last he recovered enough strength to return to France.
The return trip was first delayed by dysentery, and further when his ship was caught in a storm and dropped him off at Réunion, where he had to wait until a Spanish ship took him home.
He finally arrived in Paris in October 1771, having been away for eleven years, only to find that he had been declared legally dead and been replaced in the Royal Academy of Sciences. His wife had remarried, and all his relatives had "enthusiastically plundered his estate". Due to shipwrecks and attacks on ships, none of the letters that he sent to the Academy or to his relatives reached their destination. Lengthy litigation and the intervention of the king were ultimately required before things were normalized. He got back his seat in the academy, remarried, and lived apparently happily for another 21 years.
Dave
Guillaume Le Gentil (1725 - 1792)
Guillaume Le Gentil was part of the international collaborative project organized to measure the distance to the Sun, by observing the 1761 transit of Venus from different points on the earth.
He set out from Paris in March 1760, and reached Isle de France (now Mauritius) in July. However, war had broken out between France and Britain in the meantime, hindering further passage east. He finally managed to gain passage on a frigate that was bound for India's Coromandel Coast, and he sailed in March 1761 with the intention of observing the transit from Pondicherry - a French possession in India.
The ship was blown off-course by unfavorable winds and spent five weeks at sea. By the time it finally got close to Pondicherry, the captain learned that the British had occupied the city, so the frigate was obliged to return to Isle de France. When 6 June came the sky was clear, but the ship was still at sea, and he could not take astronomical observations with the vessel rolling about. After having come this far, he thought he might as well await the next transit of Venus, which would come in another eight years (they are relatively infrequent, occurring in pairs 8 years apart, but each such pair is separated from the previous and next pairs by more than a century.)
He decided to record the 1769 transit from Manila in the Philippines. Encountering hostility from the Spanish authorities there, he headed back to Pondicherry, which had been restored to France by peace treaty in 1763, where he arrived in March 1768. He built a small observatory and waited patiently. At last, the day in question (4 June 1769) arrived, but although the mornings in the preceding month had all been lovely, on this day the sky became overcast, and Le Gentil saw nothing. The misfortune drove him to the brink of insanity, but at last he recovered enough strength to return to France.
The return trip was first delayed by dysentery, and further when his ship was caught in a storm and dropped him off at Réunion, where he had to wait until a Spanish ship took him home.
He finally arrived in Paris in October 1771, having been away for eleven years, only to find that he had been declared legally dead and been replaced in the Royal Academy of Sciences. His wife had remarried, and all his relatives had "enthusiastically plundered his estate". Due to shipwrecks and attacks on ships, none of the letters that he sent to the Academy or to his relatives reached their destination. Lengthy litigation and the intervention of the king were ultimately required before things were normalized. He got back his seat in the academy, remarried, and lived apparently happily for another 21 years.
Dave
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