As dawn rose over the Whitby coastline today, researchers at the University of Bradford were waiting on the West clifftop next to the Captain Cook Memorial Statute with some of the town’s schoolchildren to give them a chance to see the rare Transit of Venus, which will not happen again until 2117.
The Bradford Robotic Telescope team organised the observation to coincide with work at the Captain Cook Memorial Museum in Whitby to celebrate the links between the famous explorer and the transit.
In 1796 James Cook led an international programme to measure the distance to the Sun by observing the transit from Tahiti in the Pacific.
The Transit of Venus occurs where the orbital path of the planet of Venus crosses the line of sight from the earth to the sun, casting a shadow in relief.
The event was expected to be observable between 4.30am and 6am today.
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