Predicted path of Venus on the Sun during the 1882 ToV in relation to the field of the Kew photoheliograph, published by the pioneering astrophotographer Warren de la Rue in 1868.  This copy is from the relatively rare Correspondence Between the Treasury, the Admiralty, and the Astronomer Royal, Respecting the Arrangements to be Made for Observing the Transits of Venus, Which Will Take Place in the Years 1874 and 1882 printed in the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers XLVII (1869).

The Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory building from which the 1882 transit of Venus (ToV) was supposed to be observed survives, although it was moved to its present location subsequent to 1882. The observatory tower was built to house the high quality 152mm O.G. Thomas Cooke refractor commissioned for the ToV. The telescope also survives, and is in the collections of the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa.

Photograph by R.A. Rosenfeld.

This pillar, erected to carry an astrometrical instrument called a meridian transit, is the only original surviving architectural feature on the site of the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory, the nerve centre of the Dominion's 1882 transit of Venus campaign, and a place from which the ToV was not observed due to uncooperative weather.

Photograph by R.A. Rosenfeld.

The Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory was the nerve centre for the Dominion's Transit of Venus (ToV) campaign in 1882. That campaign was designed, organized, and directed by Charles Carpmael, the director of the observatory, superintendent of the Dominion's Meteorological Office, and first President of the reconstituted RASC from 1890-1894. The campaign involved thirteen observing stations, distributed from Charlottetown to Winnipeg.

Rare amateur astrophotographs of the 1882 transit. Samuel Cooper, a poor but resourceful day-labourer astronomer (to use Allan Chapman's term), was known as the Optical Bricklayer from his contributions to the English Mechanic and the World of Science. He used a 23cm silver-on-glass Newtonian reflector and a camera of his own manufacture to take these images. They survive today on this rare lantern slide. The images came into the RASC's possession in 1911, the gift of G. Parry Jenkins, an acquaintance of Cooper's. Image ©RASC.