List: English astronomers

by likeorhate

•  Arthur Stanley Eddington

  Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, OM, FRS (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was a British astrophysicist of the early 20th century. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the luminosity of stars, or the radiation generated by accretion onto a compact object, is named in his honour. He is famous for his work regarding the Theory of Relativity. Eddington wrote a number of articles which announced and explained Einstein's theory of general relativity to the English-speaking world.

  

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  42.4%
  
•  Fred Hoyle

  Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer noted primarily for his contribution to the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and his often controversial stance on other cosmological and scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory, a term originally coined by him as a jocular, perhaps disparaging, name for the theory which was the main rival to his own.

  

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•  Brian May

  Brian Harold May, CBE (born 19 July 1947 in London) is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. As a guitarist he uses his home built guitar, "Red Special", and has composed hits such as "Now I'm Here", "Tie Your Mother Down", "We Will Rock You", "Who Wants to Live Forever", "Hammer to Fall", "Save Me", "Fat Bottomed Girls", "I Want It All" and "Too Much Love Will Kill You".

  

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•  Nevil Maskelyne

  The Reverend Dr Nevil Maskelyne FRS (6 October 1732 – 9 February 1811) was the fifth English Astronomer Royal. He held the office from 1765 to 1811.

  

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•  Edmond Halley

  Edmond Halley FRS (8 November 1656 – 14 January 1742) was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's comet.

  

  33.3%
  

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  66.7%
  
•  John Flamsteed

  John Flamsteed FRS (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719) was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal.

  

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•  John Herschel

  Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS (March 7, 1792 – May 11, 1871) "Herschel | Sir | John Frederick William | 1792-1871 | astronomer" (biography), NAHSTE project, University of Edinburgh, NAHSTE-JHerschel. was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work. He was the son of astronomer Sir Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel and the father of 12 children.

  

  38.5%
  

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  23.1%
  
•  Christopher Wren

  Sir Christopher Wren (20 October 1632 – 25 February 1723) was one of the best known and highest acclaimed English architects in history, responsible for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, completed in 1710. Educated in Latin and Aristotelian physics at the University of Oxford, Wren was a notable astronomer, geometer, mathematician-physicist as well as an architect.

  

  57.1%
  

  28.6%
  

  14.3%
  
•  William McCrea (astronomer)

  Sir William Hunter McCrea (13 December 1904, Dublin – 25 April 1999) was an English astronomer and mathematician.

  

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•  William Henry Smyth

  William Henry Smyth (21 January 1788 – 8 September 1865) was an English sailor and astronomer. He was the father of Charles Piazzi Smyth, Sir Warington Wilkinson Smyth and General Sir Henry Augustus Smyth. Of his daughters, Henrietta Grace Smyth married Professor Baden Powell and was mother of Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, while Georgiana Rosetta Smyth married Sir William Henry Flower. He was born in Westminster, London.

  

  18.2%
  

  27.3%
  

  54.5%
  
•  Charles Piazzi Smyth

  Charles Piazzi Smyth (January 3, 1819 – February 21, 1900), was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1846 to 1888, well-known for many innovations in astronomy and his pyramidological and metrological studies of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

  

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•  Edward James Stone

  Edward James Stone (February 28, 1831–May 6, 1897) was an English astronomer. He was born in Notting Hill, London to Roger and Elizabeth Stone. Educated at the City of London School, he obtained a studentship at King's College London, and in 1856 a scholarship at Queens' College, Cambridge where he graduated as fifth wrangler in 1859, and was immediately elected fellow of his college. The following year he succeeded the Rev.

  

  22.2%
  

  44.4%
  

  33.3%
  
•  Francis Baily

  Francis Baily (28 April 1774 – 30 August 1844) was an British astronomer, most famous for his observations of 'Baily's beads' during an eclipse of the Sun.

  

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  66.7%
  

  33.3%
  
•  John Bainbridge (astronomer)

  John Bainbridge (1582 – November 3, 1643) was an English astronomer.

  

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•  James Bradley

  James Bradley FRS (March 1693 – 13 July 1762) was an English astronomer the Astronomer Royal from 1742. Bradley is best known for two fundamental discoveries in astronomy, the aberration of light (1725–28), and the nutation of the Earth's axis (1728–48).

  

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•  John Couch Adams

  John Couch Adams (5 June 1819 – 21 January 1892) was a British mathematician and astronomer. Adams was born in Laneast, near Launceston, Cornwall and died in Cambridge. The Cornish name Couch is pronounced "cooch". His most famous achievement was predicting the existence and position of Neptune, using only mathematics. The calculations were made to explain discrepancies with Uranus's orbit and the laws of Kepler and Newton.

  

  66.7%
  

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  33.3%
  
•  Patrick Moore

  Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore, CBE, HonFRS, FRAS (born 4 March 1923 in Pinner) known as Patrick Moore, is an English amateur astronomer who has attained prominent status in astronomy as a writer, researcher, radio commentator and television presenter of the subject, and who is credited as having done more than any other to raise the profile of astronomy among the British general public.

  

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•  Charles Mason

  Charles Mason was an English astronomer who made significant contributions to 18th-century science and American history, particularly through his involvement with the survey of the Mason-Dixon line, which came to mark the division between the northern and southern United States (1764-1768).

  

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•  Jeremiah Dixon

  Jeremiah Dixon (July 27, 1733 – January 22, 1779) was an English surveyor and astronomer who is perhaps best known for his work with Charles Mason, from 1763 to 1767, in determining what was later called the Mason-Dixon line. Dixon was born in Cockfield, near Bishop Auckland, County Durham, in 1733, the fifth of seven children, to George Dixon and Mary Hunter. His father was a wealthy Quaker coal mine owner.

  

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•  George Biddell Airy

  Sir George Biddell Airy FRS (27 July 1801 – 2 January 1892) was an English mathematician and astronomer, Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the Earth, a method of solution of two-dimensional problems in solid mechanics and, in his role as Astronomer Royal, establishing Greenwich at the location of the prime meridian.

  

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•  Caroline Herschel

  Caroline Lucretia Herschel (16 March 1750 – 9 January 1848) was a German astronomer, the sister of astronomer Sir Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel with whom she worked throughout both of their careers. Her most significant contribution to astronomy was the discovery of several comets and in particular the periodic comet 35P/Herschel-Rigollet, which bears her name. She was the fourth of six children.

  

  37.5%
  

  12.5%
  

  50.0%
  
•  Henry Kater

  Henry Kater (16 April 1777 – 26 April 1835), English physicist of German descent, was born at Bristol. At first he purposed to study law; but this he abandoned on his father's death in 1794, and entered the army, obtaining a commission in the 12th regiment of foot, then stationed in India, where he rendered valuable assistance to William Lambton in the Great Trigonometric Survey.

  

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•  Mike Disney

  Michael John Disney is an astrophysicist. He discovered the optical component of the Crab Pulsar in 1969 with John Cocke. This was the first optical pulsar ever observed. He was also one of the pioneers in the discovery of low surface brightness galaxies. Disney was a professor at Cardiff University until his retirement in 2005, and is now Professor Emeritus. He was the co-author with Alan Wright of the humorous (and often mis-attributed) short story 'Impure Mathematics'.

  

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•  Joseph Norman Lockyer

  

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•  Charles Pritchard

  Charles Pritchard (29 February 1808 – 28 May 1893) was a British astronomer. He was born at Alberbury, Shropshire. At sixteen he was enrolled as a sizar at St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1830 as fourth wrangler. In 1832 he was elected a fellow of his college, and in the following year he was ordained, and became head of a private school at Stockwell. From 1834 to 1862 he was headmaster of Clapham grammar school.

  

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