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Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the astronomer royal dating from 22 June 1675; the junior is the astronomer royal for Scotland dating from 1834.
The post was created by King Charles II in 1675, at the same time as he founded the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. He appointed John Flamsteed, instructing him "forthwith to apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so-much desired longitude of places, for the perfecting the art of navigation." [1] [2] [3]
The origin of the title Astronomer Royal is unknown. [4] Although Flamsteed is widely considered the first Astronomer Royal, he was never appointed with the title and only referred to in the Warrant to Ordinance as "Our Astronomical Observer". [4] Similar language was used to appoint all the Astronomer Royals until 1881 with William Christie's appointment. The term Astronomer Royal did not become commonly used until the late 18th Century while the Royal Warrants still used "Our Astronomical Observer" [4] Other titles such as Royal Professor at Greenwich were also used is less formal documents during this time. [4]
In 1703, Newton was elected President of the Royal Society and was upset with the lack of publications coming from the Greenwich Observatory under Flamsteed. [5] This eventually led to Queen Anne's Warrant of 1710 where members of thee Royal Society was appointed as the Board of Visitors to the Royal Observatory to oversee Flamsteed. [4] The original Board of Visitors consisted entirely of associates and allies of Newton which enraged Flamesteed. [5]
The astronomer royal was director of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich from the establishment of the post in 1675 until 1972. The astronomer royal became an honorary title in 1972 without executive responsibilities, and a separate post of director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory was created to manage the institution. [3] [6]
Astronomers Royal are responsible for many different discoveries and theories. They had several assistants who aided in their research at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The most important position was the computers or people that would do all the math computations behind the astronomers' observations. Many of these computers were women and they were often left out of articles and books leaving them out of most common history sources. [7]
The astronomer royal today receives a stipend of 100 GBP per year and is a member of the royal household, under the general authority of the Lord Chamberlain. After the separation of the two offices, the position of astronomer royal has been largely honorary, although the holder remains available to advise the Sovereign on astronomical and related scientific matters, [8] and the office is of great prestige.
There was formerly a royal astronomer of Ireland who was also the Andrew's Professor of Astronomy at the University of Dublin. [9] Both became vacant in 1921 with Irish Independence but a new Andrew's Professor of Astronomy was appointed in 1985. [9]
# | Image | Name | Start year | End year | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. | John Flamsteed | 1675 | 1719 | [2] [8] | |
2. | Edmond Halley | 1720 | 1742 | [2] [8] | |
3. | James Bradley | 1742 | 1762 | [2] [8] | |
4. | Nathaniel Bliss | 1762 | 1764 | [2] [8] | |
5. | Nevil Maskelyne | 1765 | 1811 | [2] [8] | |
6. | John Pond | 1811 | 1835 | [2] [8] | |
7. | Sir George Biddell Airy | 1835 | 1881 | [6] [8] | |
8. | Sir William Christie | 1881 | 1910 | [6] [8] | |
9. | Sir Frank Dyson | 1910 | 1933 | [6] [8] | |
10. | Sir Harold Spencer Jones | 1933 | 1955 | [6] [8] | |
11. | Sir Richard van der Riet Woolley | 1956 | 1971 | [6] [8] | |
12. | Sir Martin Ryle | 1972 | 1982 | [6] [8] | |
13. | Sir Francis Graham-Smith | 1982 | 1990 | [8] | |
14. | Sir Arnold Wolfendale | 1991 | 1995 | [8] | |
15. | Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow | 1995 | Incumbent | [8] |
John Flamsteed is responsible for a few important discoveries including proving his theory of annual stellar parallax and the discovery of Uranus even though he thought it was a star. [10] In 1694 he was able to gather evidence of the stellar parallax and was the first person to prove that the earth rotates around the sun. [11] However, his biggest contribution to the royal observatory and later Astronomer Royals was his high standard of work.
Six years after the death of Flamsteed, Historia Coelestis Britannica published containing much of the data and theories he had spent his life working on both before and after his appointment as Astronomer Royal. [12] It contains accurate tables of lunar motion, planetary motion, and detailed stellar catalogues of 2935 stars. [12] This publication made the Astronomer Royal and the Royal Observatory, Greenwich internationally renown for precise observation. [13]
Edmund Halley, was determined to find a way to find longitude at sea without sight of land. [14] Starting in 1725, Halley while serving Astronomer Royal and a Commissioner of the Board of Longitude made very detailed and precise observations of the moon. [14] From these observations he was able to show that longitude could be calculated using the moon in 1731. [14] Although the error is his calculations was about 69 miles at the equator, it was more accurate then any other methods until the marine chronometer for finding longitude. [14]
The astronomer royal is mentioned in H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds and in George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London . [15] He also makes an appearance in the lyrics of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance [16] and plays an important role in Fred Hoyle's novel The Black Cloud . [17]
Nevil Maskelyne was the fifth British Astronomer Royal. He held the office from 1765 to 1811. He was the first person to scientifically measure the mass of the planet Earth. He created The Nautical Almanac, in full the British Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris for the Meridian of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich using Tobias Mayer's corrections for Euler's Lunar Theory tables.
John Flamsteed was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, Catalogus Britannicus, and a star atlas called Atlas Coelestis, both published posthumously. He also made the first recorded observations of Uranus, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a star, and he laid the foundation stone for the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is an observatory situated on a hill in Greenwich Park in south east London, overlooking the River Thames to the north. It played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and because the Prime Meridian passed through it, it gave its name to Greenwich Mean Time, the precursor to today's Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The ROG has the IAU observatory code of 000, the first in the list. ROG, the National Maritime Museum, the Queen's House and the clipper ship Cutty Sark are collectively designated Royal Museums Greenwich.
James Bradley (1692–1762) was an English astronomer and priest who served as the third Astronomer Royal from 1742. He is best known for two fundamental discoveries in astronomy, the aberration of light (1725–1728), and the nutation of the Earth's axis (1728–1748).
Caroline Lucretia Herschel was a German-born British astronomer, whose most significant contributions to astronomy were the discoveries of several comets, including the periodic comet 35P/Herschel–Rigollet, which bears her name. She was the younger sister of astronomer William Herschel, with whom she worked throughout her career.
Thomas Henderson FRSE FRS FRAS was a Scottish astronomer and mathematician noted for being the first person to measure the distance to Alpha Centauri, the major component of the nearest stellar system to Earth, the first to determine the parallax of a fixed star, and for being the first Astronomer Royal for Scotland.
Nathaniel Bliss was an English astronomer of the 18th century, serving as Britain's fourth Astronomer Royal between 1762 and 1764.
George Graham, FRS was an English clockmaker, inventor, and geophysicist, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Herbert Hall Turner was a British astronomer and seismologist.
Abraham Sharp was an English mathematician and astronomer.
Colin Alistair Ronan FRAS was a British author and specialist in the history and philosophy of science.
Richard Towneley was an English mathematician, natural philosopher and astronomer, resident at Towneley Hall, near Burnley in Lancashire. His uncle was the antiquarian and mathematician Christopher Towneley (1604–1674).
Sir Jonas Moore, FRS (1617–1679) was an English mathematician, surveyor, ordnance officer, and patron of astronomy. He took part in two of the most ambitious English civil engineering projects of the 17th century: draining the Great Level of the Fens and building the Mole at Tangier. In later life, his wealth and influence as Surveyor-General of the Ordnance enabled him to become a patron and driving force behind the establishment of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
Marek Janusz Kukula is a British astronomer and an author of works on popular science. After gaining a PhD in radio astronomy from the University of Manchester in 1994, he specialised in studying distant galaxies. As his research reached the limits of telescopes, he moved into the field of public engagement. In 2008 he was appointed Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
The Shuckburgh telescope or Shuckburgh equatorial refracting telescope was a 4.1 inches (10.4 cm) diameter aperture telescope on an equatorial mount completed in 1791 for Sir George Shuckburgh (1751–1804) in Warwickshire, England, and built by British instrument maker Jesse Ramsden (1735–1800). It was transferred to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in 1811 and the London Science Museum in 1929. Even though it has sometimes not been regarded as particularly successful, its design was influential. It was one of the larger achromatic doublet telescopes at the time, and one of the largest to have an equatorial mount. It was also known as the eastern equatorial for its location.
The Atlas Coelestis is a star atlas published posthumously in 1729, based on observations made by the First Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed.
EdmondHalley was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720.
The director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory was the senior scientist responsible for the administration of the Royal Greenwich Observatory from 1972 until the institution's closure in 1998.
Margaret Flamsteed is the first woman on record to be associated with astronomy in Britain. She was married to John Flamsteed, the Astronomical Observer. After John Flamsteed's death she oversaw publication of both of his most famous works: Historia Coelestis Britannica in 1725 and Atlas Coelestis in 1729. Without her, neither of these two important works would have been published.
The Greenwich 28-inch refractor is a telescope at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, where it was first installed in 1893. It is a 28-inch ( 71 cm) aperture objective lens telescope, otherwise known as a refractor, and was made by the telescope maker Sir Howard Grubb. The achromatic lens was made Grubb from Chance Brothers glass. The mounting is older however and dates to the 1850s, having been designed by Royal Observatory director George Airy and the firm Ransomes and Simms. The telescope is noted for its spherical dome which extends beyond the tower, nicknamed the "onion" dome. Another name for this telescope is "The Great Equatorial" which it shares with the building, which housed an older but smaller telescope previously.
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