English astronomer (1823?1895)
For other people with the same name, see
John Hind
.
John Russell Hind
FRS
FRSE
LLD
(12 May 1823 ? 23 December 1895) was an
English
astronomer
.
Life and work
[
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]
John Russell Hind was born in 1823 in
Nottingham
, the son of lace manufacturer John Hind and Elizabeth Russell,
[1]
and was educated at
Nottingham High School
. At age 17 he went to
London
to serve an apprenticeship as a civil engineer, but through the help of
Charles Wheatstone
he left engineering to accept a position at the
Royal Observatory, Greenwich
under
George Biddell Airy
.
[2]
[3]
Hind remained there from 1840 to 1844, at which time he succeeded
W. R. Dawes
as director of the private
George Bishop's Observatory
. In 1853 Hind became Superintendent of the
Nautical Almanac
, a position he held until 1891.
Hind is notable for being one of the early discoverers of
asteroids
. He also discovered and observed the
variable stars
R Leporis
(also known as Hind's Crimson Star),
U Geminorum
, and
T Tauri
(also called Hind's Variable Nebula), and discovered the variability of
μ Cephei
. Hind discovered
Nova Ophiuchi 1848
(
V841 Ophiuchi
), the first object of its type discovered since 1670.
[4]
Hind's naming of the asteroid
12 Victoria
caused some controversy. At the time, asteroids were not supposed to be named after living persons. Hind somewhat disingenuously claimed that the name was not a reference to
Queen Victoria
, but the mythological figure
Victoria
.
He was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society
in June 1863
[5]
and President of the
Royal Astronomical Society
in 1880.
[6]
He died in 1895 in
Twickenham
, London. Hind had married Fanny Fuller in 1846; he and his wife had six children.
Honours and legacy
[
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]
Notes
[
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]
Some sources give his name as
John Russel Hind
with only one "L". However, civil records
[7]
and 19th century British astronomical magazines consistently spell his name with two "L"s.
In the table of discovered asteroids, mpc links to the
Minor Planet Center
database for more information about the asteroid, along with the background on its name.
References
[
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]
Further reading
[
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]
External links
[
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]
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