After reading about Ian's death and seeing
the well presented letter of Ellen's on Five Doves, I looked through my archives
of e-mail for "Rev. Dr. Natch".
I found this letter that was, and I believe
still is, important to the research concerning November 8, 2006.
But most of all I look forward to meeting
Ian very soon.
Daniel
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 9:38
AM
Subject: Transit of Mercry
Hi
everyone!
This is quite a remarkable
coincidence! Astronomer royal
Edmond Halley, who made the first complete observation of a transit of Mercury, was
born on November
8th, the same day as this year's
transit! This occurred in 1677 (on the eve of his birthday) and the number of
transits of Mercury from then to 2006 inclusive is 46 = gematria of ELIJAH! 2006
is only the 2nd on November 8th since 1677, the last one being in
1881.
November
8
Edmond Halley
1656–1742, English
Astronomer and Mathematician
He is particularly noted as
the first astronomer to predict the return of a comet and the first to point
out the use of a transit of Venus in determining the parallax of the sun. In
1676 he went to St. Helena to observe the southern skies and as a result made
a catalog of 341 stars of the Southern Hemisphere. In 1677 he made the first complete observation of a transit
of Mercury. He financed the publication of
Isaac Newton's Principia and helped to prepare it for the press. On the basis
of Newton's theory, Halley calculated the orbit of the great comet of
1682-since known as Halley's comet-and predicted its return in 1758. In
1698-1700 he made one of the first studies of compass variations in the North
Atlantic. He was made astronomer royal in 1720. He observed the moon through
the complete revolution of its nodes; this took 18 years. Other discoveries of
Halley's are the proper motions of the stars and the acceleration of the
moon's mean motion. His noted synopsis of known comets appeared in 1705; his
Tabulae astronomicae (1749, tr. 1752) was published
posthumously.