Abstract
AS a supplementary note to the obituary notice in NATURE of April 14 of my old friend, Prof. Antonio Abetti, of the Arcetri Observatory, Florence, may I direct attention to a remarkable observation of his made in India at the transit of Venus in 1874? This consisted in viewing the planet projected against the solar chromosphere on the C-line through the open slit of his spectroscope. The observation, which is figured in the Mem. Soc. Spett. Ital., and which he described to me on one of my visits to Arcetri, was considered most remarkable at the time and, by some, was scarcely credited. Venus, however, remained visible through the slit for four minutes, while the chromosphere appeared with its usual brightness interrupted only by the dark body of the planet. A similar observation in the case of a transit of Mercury was suggested a few years ago by the late Mr. Thorp.
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PARR, W. Prof. A. Abetti and the 1874 Transit of Venus. Nature 121, 675 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/121675b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/121675b0
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