Transit of Venus
From Hidden Collection…
The recent Transit of Venus that took place on June 6, 2012 drew lot of attention and interest among the public and scientific community.
Historically this event is connected to Madras Observatory, as elaborate arrangements were made in the Observatory to observe the Transit of Venus that occurred in 1874 and 1882.
Chintamany Ragoonatha Chary who was the first assistant at the Madras Observatory that time, brought out a pamphlet to describe the phenomenon of Transits (over the Sun) in Tamil. This pamphlet was later translated into English and other Indian languages.
IIA Archives has the copies of this pamphlet in English, Kannada and Urdu in its collection and the library has taken the initiative to bring out this pamphlet in a re-printed form during this occasion.
The pamphlet was released by Prof. N. Kameswara Rao, former Senior Professor of IIA on the 25thMay 2012, after his talk on “Ragoonatha Chary and his Astronomy at Madras Observatory” delivered at IIA.
