Seite - 180 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 4180 astronomers, Bugge and Urban Bruun Aaskow (1742–1806)—recommended by Kratzenstein upon the request of the president of the society and director of the University of Copenhagen, Count Johan Ludvig Holstein (1694–1763)—to Trondheim. Bugge and Aaskow left Copenhagen on May 5 and reached their destination on the thirtieth of the same month, barely a week before the tran- sit took place.25 The observation of Bugge and Aaskow was partially spoiled by bad weather, however, and despite the advantageous geographical position of Trondheim, their contribution is—like that of Horrebow—mentioned only briefly by Lalande in the memoirs of the Académie Royale des Sciences.26 The meager output of the Danish transit observations in 1761 was all the more remarkable as not too much skill was required to contribute to it. The key was to be in possession of a good astronomical tube and a reliable clock for the time-keeping. In principle, it was possible to learn the rest within a few weeks or months of practice.27 Arguably, Denmark–Norway as a seafaring nation had Science History Publications, 2009); Rolv Nøtvik Jakobsen, Gunnerus og nordisk vitskaps- historie (Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, 2015). 25 Lalande, “Remarques,” 114. Kratzenstein was also given the task of providing Bugge and Aaskow with the necessary instruments, cf. Egil Snorrason, C.G. Kratzenstein: Professor physices experimentalis Petropol. et Havn. and His Studies on Electricity during the Eigh- teenth Century, Acta historica scientiarum naturalium et medicinalium edidit bibliotheca universitatis Hauniensis 29 (Odense: Odense University Press, 1974), 86. 26 Lalande, “Remarques,” 114. As for the claim about the bad weather, see Thykier, Gylden- kerne, and Darnell, Dansk Astronomi Gennem Firehundrede År, 2:261. This is confirmed not only by Lalande but also by a Latin poem consisting of twenty elegiac couplets pub- lished by the mayor of Trondheim, Niels Krogh Bredal (1732–78), just after the transit had taken place. It tells how the two observers struggled with adverse weather during the transit and had to content themselves with the end stages of the transit alone; cf. Niels Krogh Bredal, “Amicis summo honore suscipiendis scientiæ astronomicæ peritis Dominis Bugge et Aaskov, ad Nidrosiam Veneris Solem transeuntis videndæ gratia iter facienti- bus per iniuriam nebulosæ athmosphæræ ut plurimum spe frustratis inter otia has line- olas posuit,” Kiøbenhavnske Nye Tidender om lærde Sager (June 18, 1761): 203–4. 27 That laymen were encouraged to participate in the project is evident (besides exchanges cited in Chapter 2 above between Hell and amateurs in and around Vienna) from the pedagogical nature of several treatises published on the eve of the transits of the 1760s. Besides Hell’s Transitus Veneris per discum Solis anni 1761 and Röhl’s Merkwürdigkeiten von den Durchgängen der Venus durch die Sonne, already mentioned, such works include James Ferguson, A Plain Method of Determining the Parallax of Venus by Her Transit over the Sun (1761), cf. Sellers, Transit of Venus, 122–23; Benjamin Martin, Venus in the Sun: Being an Explanation of the Rationale of That Great Phænomenon; Of the Several Methods Used by Astronomers for Computing the Quantity and Phases Thereof; And of the Manner of Ap- plying a Transit of Venus over the Solar Disk, for the Discovery of the Parallax of the Sun, Settling the Theory of That Planet’s Motion, and Ascertaining the Dimensions of the Solar System (London: W. Owen, 1761); Nevil Maskelyne, Instructions Relative to the Observation of the Ensuing Transit of Venus over the Sun’s Disk, on the 3rd of June 1769 (London: