Sun, Moon & Planets
The Transit of Venus, 1769
The broadside that measured the solar system.
- Chart
- A Delineation of the Transit of Venus Expected in the Year 1769
- Astronomer
- James Ferguson
- Date
- 1763
- Held by
- Published London · Wikimedia Commons
Finish
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
$29.00
The story
Twice a century, Venus crosses the face of the Sun as a small black dot — and in the 1700s astronomers realised that timing that crossing from distant corners of the Earth could reveal the true size of the solar system. James Ferguson's broadside predicted the 1769 transit years in advance, diagramming exactly where the dark disc would track. It sent ships and observers across the globe, Captain Cook's first voyage among them. This is science foretelling the sky and then setting out to measure it — the humble black dot that gave the heavens their scale.
See it on your wall
A window onto the heavens, in your home
The Transit of Venus, 1769 printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of a public-domain chart held by Published London · Wikimedia Commons — the work is centuries out of copyright.
- Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm. Framed pieces sit in a box frame under acrylic, with no mount (gold-ink editions on specialist press).
- Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Why our charts cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the gold figures, the tiny stars, the cartouches — on a matte sheet that shows every line without glare.
