Edmond Halley, the son of a wealthy…

Edmond Halley, the son of a wealthy soapboiler, had been very interested in mathematics as a child.

He had studied at St Paul's School, and, from 1673, at The Queen's College, Oxford.

While an undergraduate, Halley had published papers on the solar system and sunspots.

On leaving Oxford in 1676, Halley visits the south Atlantic island of St. Helena and sets up an observatory with a  twenty-four foot-long aerial telescope with the intention of studying stars from the Southern Hemisphere.

Here, he observes the transit of Venus.