Stephen Groombridge
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Stephen Groombridge FRS (January 7, 1755, Goudhurst – March 30, 1832, Blackheath) was a British astronomer.
In 1806, using a transit circle, he began compiling a star catalogue of stars down to about eighth or ninth magnitude. He spent ten years making observations and another ten years doing reductions of the data (correcting for refraction, instrument error and clock error). In 1827 he suffered a "severe attack of paralysis" from which he never fully recovered. Others continued the work, continuing with corrections for aberration and nutation among others, and his Catalogue of Circumpolar Stars was published in 1838. An earlier edition had been published in 1833 but was found to contain errors and was withdrawn.
A few years later in 1842, one of the stars in his catalogue, Groombridge 1830, was discovered by Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander to have a very high proper motion. For many decades its proper motion was the highest known; today it still occupies third place.
[edit] Selected writings
- Groombridge, Stephen (1838). A Catalogue of Circumpolar Stars. John Murray.- edited by George Biddell Airy; has biographical information for Groombridge
[edit] Further reading
- Ashbrook, Joseph (1984). The Astronomical Scrapbook. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Sky Publishing, 352 – 359.
- * Adapted from Sky & Telescope, May, 1974, page 296
[edit] External links
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