Letters: Groombridge-Maskelyne-Herschel

Abstract

The English astronomer Stephen Groombridge (Fig. 10.1) wrote several letters to William Herschel about the asteroids from 1808 to 1818. He also sent observations to Alexander Tilloch (1759–1825), who published them in his magazine, The Philosophical Journal. Both Joseph Banks and Nevil Maskelyne also wrote to Herschel about Vesta. George Airy (1835:182), writing in 1832 (3 years before he became Astronomer Royal), recognized the unique contribution of Groombridge:

The observations that require only moderate instruments, with patience and zeal on the part of the observer, as the discovery and observation of comets, and the observation of the small planets, (which on the Continent have generally been made with unmounted telescopes,) have been little attended to [in England]. Of the latter, some observations by Mr. Groombridge, some at Greenwich, and a few by myself, constitute, I believe, the whole amount.