Robert Grant (astronomer)
Encyclopedia
Robert Grant was a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 astronomer
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

.

Overcoming health problems and financial difficulties, he published in 1852 the complete text of his book The History of Physical Astronomy from the Earliest Ages to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century. The work immediately took a leading place in astronomical literature and won for Grant the 1856 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
-History:In the early years, more than one medal was often awarded in a year, but by 1833 only one medal was being awarded per year. This caused a problem when Neptune was discovered in 1846, because many felt an award should jointly be made to John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier...

. In 1859 he became John Pringle Nichol
John Pringle Nichol
John Pringle Nichol FRSE was a Scottish educator, astronomer and economist who did much to popularise astronomy in a manner that appealed to nineteenth century tastes.-Early life:...

's successor as professor in astronomy in the University of Glasgow
University of Glasgow
The University of Glasgow is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ancient universities. Located in Glasgow, the university was founded in 1451 and is presently one of seventeen British higher education institutions ranked amongst the top 100 of the...

. He contributed various astronomical papers to scientific journals but his main work consisted in determining the positions of a large number of stars with the Ertel
Ertel
Ertel is a surname originating from South Germany: from a personalized form of a name beginning with Ort-, from Old High German "ort": "point ."Ertel may also mean "Steel Smith."...

Ertel (Traugott Lebrecht Ertel [Fribourg 1778 - Munich 1858]) built mathematical instruments at the Mathematical-Mechanical Institute of Munich. transit-circle
Meridian circle
The meridian circle, transit circle, or transit telescope is an instrument for observing the time of stars passing the meridian, at the same time measuring its angular distance from the zenith...

 of Glasgow Observatory. The results of his work, extending over 21 years, are contained in the Glasgow Catalogue of 6415 Stars, published in 1883. A few weeks after his death in 1892, there was publication of the Second Glasgow Catalogue of 2156 Stars.

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