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 Astronomer Royal works to make observations to improve navigation, cartography, instrument design, and applications of geomagnetism. The position was created with the overall goal of discovering a way to determine longitude at sea when out of sight of land.
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the sun to another star by the method of parallax. Certain important mathematical functions were named Bessel functions after Bessel's death, though they had originally been discovered by Daniel Bernoulli before being generalised by Bessel.
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.
In astronomy, the ecliptic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system commonly used for representing the apparent positions, orbits, and pole orientations of Solar System objects. Because most planets and many small Solar System bodies have orbits with only slight inclinations to the ecliptic, using it as the fundamental plane is convenient. The system's origin can be the center of either the Sun or Earth, its primary direction is towards the March equinox, and it has a right-hand convention. It may be implemented in spherical or rectangular coordinates.
The Vatican Observatory is an astronomical research and educational institution supported by the Holy See. Originally based in the Roman College of Rome, the Observatory is now headquartered in Castel Gandolfo, Italy and operates a telescope at the Mount Graham International Observatory in the United States.
The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, officially named the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkovo, is the principal astronomical observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is located 19 km south of Saint Petersburg on Pulkovo Heights 75 metres (246 ft) above sea level. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments. It was formerly known as the Imperial Observatory at Pulkowo.
James Curley was an Irish-American astronomer.
Paul A. McNally was an American astronomer, scientist, and Jesuit priest. He was also a Dean of the Georgetown University School of Medicine.
Texas A&M Astronomical Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Texas A&M University's Department of Physics. It is located in College Station, Texas, USA.
Johann (John) Georg Hagen was an Austrian Jesuit priest and astronomer. After serving as Director of the Georgetown University Observatory he was called to Rome by Pope Pius X in 1906 to be the first Jesuit director of the new Vatican Observatory. Father Hagen was also the spiritual director of Maria Elizabeth Hesselblad (1870-1957), who was baptized by him on August 15, 1902 and eventually was canonized on June 5, 2016 by Pope Francis.
The Madras Observatory was an astronomical observatory which had its origins in a private observatory set up by William Petrie in 1786 and later moved and managed by the British East India Company from 1792 in Madras. The main purpose for establishing it was to assist in navigation and mapping by recording the latitude and maintaining time standards. In later years the observatory also made observations on stars and geomagnetism. The observatory ran from around 1792 to 1931 and a major work was the production of a comprehensive catalogue of stars.
The Manastash Ridge Observatory (MRO) is an astronomical observatory built in 1972 by the University of Washington. It is located in a remote area approximately 14 kilometers (8.7 mi) west of Ellensburg, Washington, at an altitude of 3930', a longitude of 120.7278 degrees West, and a latitude of +46.9528 degrees, and can be reached by dirt roads from Ellensburg or Selah. The observatory features a 0.75 m (30 in) Ritchey-Chrétien telescope built by Boller and Chivens. Currently, the observatory utilizes an Andor thermo-electrically cooled CCD camera in conjunction with the primary telescope. Initially used for professional and graduate research, the observatory is now used mostly by undergraduate students for instruction and research. For a brief time there was talk of stopping funding for MRO as the University of Washington Astronomy Department focus on the Apache Point Observatory, but funding did continue and MRO is still in use.
The Durham University Observatory is a weather observatory owned and operated by the University of Durham. It is a Grade II listed building located at Potters Bank, Durham and was founded in 1839 initially as an astronomical and meteorological observatory by Temple Chevallier, until 1937 when the observatory moved purely to meteorological recording.
Joseph Stillman Hubbard was an American astronomer from New Haven, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale University in 1843, whither he had been attracted by Ebenezer Porter Mason, then one of Yale’s enthusiastic astronomers. Subsequently he studied mathematics and astronomy at home, and also taught for a while in a classical school, but early in 1844 he went to Philadelphia as assistant of Sears Cook Walker, who had charge of the observatory of the high-school in that city.
Joseph Havens Richards was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who became a prominent president of Georgetown University, where he instituted major reforms and significantly enhanced the quality and stature of the university. Richards was born to a prominent Ohio family; his father was an Episcopal priest who controversially converted to Catholicism and had the infant Richards secretly baptized as a Catholic.
Charles Henry Stonestreet was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who served in prominent religious and academic positions, including as provincial superior of the Jesuit Maryland Province and president of Georgetown University. He was born in Maryland and attended Georgetown University, where he co-founded the Philodemic Society. After entering the Society of Jesus and becoming a professor at Georgetown, he led St. John's Literary Institution and St. John the Evangelist Church in Frederick, Maryland. He was appointed president of Georgetown University in 1851, holding the office for two years, during which time he oversaw expansion of the university's library. The First Plenary Council of Baltimore was held at Georgetown during his tenure.
Father Francis J. Heyden, was an American Jesuit priest and astronomer. He served as Director of the Georgetown University Observatory from 1950 to 1972. After the Georgetown Observatory was closed he moved to the Manila Observatory.
Georgios Konstantinos Vouris (Greek: Γεώργιος Κωνσταντίνου Βούρης; aka Georg Konstantin Bouris was a Greek astronomer, physicist, mathematician, author, and professor. He was a pioneer in 19th-century Greek astronomy. Vouris lobbied tirelessly to create an astronomical observatory in Athens. He was the first director of the National Observatory of Athens. It was completed in 1846. Greece reconnected with its Astronomical roots. It was the first time since antiquity that a country named Greece played a significant role in Astronomy. He was the first author to publish a university textbook in the field of mathematics since the inception of the new country.
The Celestial police, officially the United Astronomical Society, was a cooperation of numerous European astronomers in the early 19th century. It is mainly known in relation to the search for objects expected between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was formed in 1800 at the second European congress of astronomers. At the first such congress, in 1798, the French mathematician Jérôme Lalande had called for a coordinated search, in which each participating observatory would patrol a particular part of the sky. The group confirmed or discovered the four largest minor planets, which would lead to the identification of the asteroid belt. They also initiated the compilation of better star catalogues and the investigation of variable stars. They pioneered international collaboration and communication in astronomy.
