User talk:Richerman/sandbox2
Hello Richerman. Congratulations on a fascinating draft article. I'm a bit of a Venus fancier. I have had a close look at the lead and can make a few suggestions:
1. In 1639 Horrocks came to realise that a transit of Venus was about to take place, an event which no other astronomer had predicted.
- There is an unhealthy mix of tenses here. The transit was about to take place, but you also say no other astronomer had predicted. Perhaps "an event no other astronomer was predicting."
2. The subsequent observations made by Horrocks and Crabtree were ground-breaking, as no other astronomers were aware of the occurence of the transit until after the event and there would not be an opportunity to repeat the observations for the next 121 years.
- I think the comma after ground-breaking is redundant. The fact that no other astronomers were aware of the imminent transit was established in the previous sentence.
3. Although the two friends both died within five years of the transit the observations they made were influential in establishing the size of the solar system and Horrocks became known, for this and his other work, as one of the founding father's of British research astronomy.
- This is a difficult sentence to digest in one sitting. I suggest ending at "... the solar system" and starting a new sentence at "Horrocks became known, ..."
If you find this useful I would be happy to look over the remainder. Dolphin (t) 12:06, 16 May 2012 (UTC)