Benjamin Apthorp Gould
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Benjamin Apthorp Gould
(1824–1896)
An American astronomer who founded the Astronomical Journal and later established Argentina's National Observatory. Gould graduated from Harvard in 1844, then, having studied for a year at Berlin, he obtained his Ph.D. from Göttingen University in 1848 under Karl Gauss. On his return to the United States he served as head of the longitude department of the U.S. Coast Survey from 1852 to 1867, pioneering the use of the telegraph in measuring longitude. At the same time he founded the Astro-nomical Journal (1849) and edited it until 1861 when its publication was halted by the Civil War. He was also connected with the Dudley Observatory, Albany, from 1855 and served as its director briefly in 1858 before being forced to get out of town the following year. After his traumatic expulsion from Albany he handled his father's business for some time. He set up a private observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, financed by his wife, and in 1862 produced a star catalog that brought together measurements made at various observatories. He left for Argentina in 1870. The 15 years spent in Cordoba were by far the most productive of Gould's career. He established the Argentine National Observatory and began the first major survey of the southern skies. The Observatory's first survey of naked-eye stars was published as the Uranometria Argentina (1879). This was followed by the fuller recording, published in 1884, of 73,160 stars from 23° S to 80° S and in 1886 by the publication of the Catàlago General (General Catalogue) containing the more accurate recording of 32,448 stellar coordinates. This important work was continued by Gould's successor, Juan Thomé. An extended band of young stars, cloud, and dust that forms a spur off one of the spiral arms of our Galaxy, revealed by the southern surveys, was subsequently named Gould's Belt. In 1885 Gould returned to Massachusetts where he restarted the Astro-nomical Journal and worked on the 1,000 photographic plates of star clusters he brought back with him from Cordoba.
An American astronomer who founded the Astronomical Journal and later established Argentina's National Observatory. Gould graduated from Harvard in 1844, then, having studied for a year at Berlin, he obtained his Ph.D. from Göttingen University in 1848 under Karl Gauss. On his return to the United States he served as head of the longitude department of the U.S. Coast Survey from 1852 to 1867, pioneering the use of the telegraph in measuring longitude. At the same time he founded the Astro-nomical Journal (1849) and edited it until 1861 when its publication was halted by the Civil War. He was also connected with the Dudley Observatory, Albany, from 1855 and served as its director briefly in 1858 before being forced to get out of town the following year. After his traumatic expulsion from Albany he handled his father's business for some time. He set up a private observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, financed by his wife, and in 1862 produced a star catalog that brought together measurements made at various observatories. He left for Argentina in 1870. The 15 years spent in Cordoba were by far the most productive of Gould's career. He established the Argentine National Observatory and began the first major survey of the southern skies. The Observatory's first survey of naked-eye stars was published as the Uranometria Argentina (1879). This was followed by the fuller recording, published in 1884, of 73,160 stars from 23° S to 80° S and in 1886 by the publication of the Catàlago General (General Catalogue) containing the more accurate recording of 32,448 stellar coordinates. This important work was continued by Gould's successor, Juan Thomé. An extended band of young stars, cloud, and dust that forms a spur off one of the spiral arms of our Galaxy, revealed by the southern surveys, was subsequently named Gould's Belt. In 1885 Gould returned to Massachusetts where he restarted the Astro-nomical Journal and worked on the 1,000 photographic plates of star clusters he brought back with him from Cordoba.
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Benjamin Apthorp Gould
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Benjamin Apthorp Gould
American astronomer (1824–1896)
Gould, the son of a merchant and teacher from Boston, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard in 1844. Having studied for a year at Berlin, he obtained his PhD from Göttingen University in 1848 under the great Karl Friedrich Gauss. On his return to America he served as head of the longitude department of the US Coast Survey from 1852 to 1867, pioneering the use of the telegraph in measuring longitude. At the same time Gould founded the Astronomical Journal in 1849 and edited it until 1861 when its publication was halted by the Civil War. He was also connected with the Dudley Observatory, Albany, from 1855 and served as its director briefly in 1858 before being forced to get out of town in the following year. After his traumatic expulsion from Albany he handled his father's business for some time. He set up a private observatory in Cambridge, financed by his wife, and in 1862 produced a star catalog that brought together measurements made at various observatories. He left for Argentina in 1870.
The 15 years spent in Cordoba were by far the most productive of Gould's career. He established the Argentine National Observatory there and began the first major survey of the southern skies. The Observatory's first survey of naked-eye stars, i.e., down to 7th magnitude, was published as the Uranometria Argentina (1879; Argentinian Survey of the Heavens). This was followed by the fuller recording, published in 1884, of 73,160 stars from 23°S to 80°S and in 1886 by the publication of the Catàlago General (General Catalogue) containing the more accurate recording of 32,448 stellar coordinates. This important work was continued by Gould's successor, Juan Thomé. An extended band of young stars, cloud, and dust that forms a spur off one of the spiral arms of our Galaxy and was revealed by the southern surveys was subsequently named Gould's Belt.
In 1885 Gould returned to Massachusetts where he restarted the Astronomical Journal in 1886 and worked on the 1000 photographic plates of star clusters he brought back with him from Cordoba.
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Benjamin Apthorp Gould
| Benjamin Apthorp Gould | |
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.jpg) Benjamin Apthorp Gould
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| Born | September 27, 1824 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Died | November 26, 1896 (aged 72) Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Astronomy |
| Alma mater | Harvard College |
| Known for | Astronomical Journal Gould Belt Gould designations |
| Influences | C. F. Gauss |
Benjamin Apthorp Gould (September 27, 1824 – November 26, 1896) was a pioneering American astronomer. He is notable for creating the Astronomical Journal, discovering the Gould Belt, and for founding of the Argentine National Observatory and the Argentine National Weather Service.
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Biography
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, son of Benjamin Apthorp Gould, the principal of Boston Latin School, which he also attended. The poet Hannah Flagg Gould was his aunt. After going on to Harvard College and graduating in 1844, he studied mathematics and astronomy under C. F. Gauss at Göttingen, Germany, during which time he published approximately 20 papers on the observation and motion of comets and asteroids. Following completion of his Ph.D. (he was the first American to receive this degree in astronomy) he toured European observatories asking for advice on what could be done to further astronomy as a professional science in the U.S.A. The main advice he received was to start a professional journal modeled after what was then the world's leading astronomical publication, the Astronomische Nachrichten.
Gould returned to America in 1848 and from 1852 to 1867 was in charge of the longitude department of the United States Coast Survey. He developed and organized the service, was one of the first to determine longitudes by telegraphic means, and employed the Atlantic cable in 1866 to establish accurate longitude-relations between Europe and America.
After his return to Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gould started the Astronomical Journal in 1849, which he published until 1861. He resumed publication in 1885. It is still published today. From 1855 to 1859 he acted as director of the Dudley Observatory at Albany, New York, and in 1859 published a discussion of the places and proper motions of circumpolar stars to be used as standards by the United States Coast Survey. In 1861 he undertook the enormous task of preparing for publication the records of astronomical observations made at the U.S. Naval Observatory since 1850. Appointed in 1862 actuary to the United States Sanitary Commission, he issued in 1869 an important volume of Military and Anthropological Statistics. In 1864 he fitted up a private observatory at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and undertook in 1868, on behalf of the Argentine republic, to organize a national observatory at Córdoba. In 1868 he became the first director of the Argentine National Observatory (today, Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba of the National University of Córdoba). While there, he and four assistants extensively mapped the southern hemisphere skies using newly developed photometric methods. On June 1, 1884, he made the last definite sighting of the Great Comet of 1882. The need of astronomers for good weather prediction spurred Gould to collaborate with Argentine colleagues to develop the Argentine National Weather Service, the first in South America.
Gould's measurements of L. M. Rutherfurd's photographs of the Pleiades in 1866 entitle him to rank as a pioneer in the use of the camera as an instrument of precision; and he secured at Córdoba 1400 negatives of southern star clusters, the reduction of which occupied the closing years of his life. He remained in Argentina until 1885, when he returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1883 and the James Craig Watson Medal in 1887. Astronomers continue to investigate the astrophysics of a large scale feature of the Milky Way to which he called their attention in 1877, and honor him with its name, The Gould Belt. A crater on the Moon is named after him. He died at Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1896.
Uranography
In 1874 Gould completed his greatest work, the Uranometria Argentina (published 1879), for which he received in 1883 the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. The publication assigned Gould designations to all bright stars within 100 degrees of the south celestial pole in a manner similar to what Flamsteed had earlier done for the northern hemisphere. An updated version, to which late 20th century data have been appended to the complete information for all stars in the original Uranometria Argentina, is available at www.uranometriaargentina.com/.
Gould followed his Uranometria Argentina with a zone-catalogue of 73,160 stars (1884), and a general catalogue (1885) compiled from meridian observations of 32,448 stars.
References
Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Gould, Benjamin Apthorp". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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