John Flamsteed

From Slackerpedia Galactica

The Reverend John Flamsteed holds several distinctions in the history of astronomy.

Born in England in 1646, like most people in his station and culture, Flamsteed trained to become a member of the Anglican clergy. While he ultimately achieved that goal, Flamsteed took some major detours along the way.

One of Flamsteed's major astronomical claims-to-fame was his appointment as Britain's first Astronomer Royal. Flamsteed was responsible for building the Greenwich Royal Observatory as part of this job.

His charge from King Charles II was to map the stars accurately enough so that a heavenly solution might be found to the problem of being able to determine longitude while at sea. Flamsteed diligently worked on this, but was such a perfectionist that 30 years later he'd still not published his catalog.

This didn't sit well with people who were notoriously impatient with waiting, namely one Sir Isaac Newton, then President of the Royal Society. He was so impatient with Flamsteed that he and Edmond Halley took it upon themselves in 1712 to publish a draft of the catalog anyway, without Flamsteed's permission.

As part of his sky survey duties, in December of 1690 he recorded a star which he cataloged as 34 Tauri. This star turned out to be the planet Uranus and is the earliest known recording of the planet by an astronomer. Take that William Herschel!

It took until 1684, but Flamsteed was finally appointed parish priest of Burstow, Surrey, where he is buried today. Ironically, he sought this position, which he held concurrently with his position as Astronomer Royal, because he couldn't live on the astronomical salary alone. So, we see the problem of poorly paying astronomers goes back a long, long time!

Today Rev. John Flamsteed is mainly remembered for giving stars yet another name - their Flamsteed Designation. So, the next time you think of the extrasolar planets around 51 Pegasi, tip your data to the good Reverend. He gave the star that name.