Joseph Baxendell (astronomer)

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Joseph Baxendell (born April 19, 1815 in Manchester , † October 7, 1887 in Birkdale ) was a British astronomer and meteorologist . Baxendell's astronomical work was on the variable stars , of which he discovered 18. In addition, on September 28, 1880, he discovered the controversial galactic nebula NGC 7088 near the globular cluster Messier 2 in Aquarius , which is also known as " Baxendell's Unphotographable Nebula " ( German: "Baxendell 's Unphotographable Nebula ").

Life

Joseph Baxendell was the oldest child of eight children born to Thomas Baxendell and Mary Shepley. He received his early training at Thomas Whalley's school in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, and his later knowledge of the natural sciences he acquired mostly himself. Since he was rather sickly as a child, the family often took him on trips to the sea. In 1829, at the age of 14, he left school and was hired as a seaman on the Mary Scott . His first trip took him to Valparaíso , Chile . This was followed by further crossings to Central and South America, during which he observed the great Leonid shower of 1833 in the Pacific. After six years as a seaman, he returned to Manchester in 1835, supported his father in the business there and later opened his own business as a real estate agent.

In Manchester, Baxendell was able to use Robert Worthington's private observatory at Crumpsall. On January 9, 1857, Baxendell was accepted as a fellow in the Royal Astronomical Society , a year later he joined the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society , whose secretary and editor he was in 1861. In 1859 he was appointed astronomer of the Corporation of Manchester to succeed Henry Halford Jones. After the death of Robert Worthington, the observatory was moved to Altrincham , but the new director Murray Gladstone forbade Baxendell to continue using it.

In 1871 Baxendell moved to Birkdale , where he was appointed borough meteorologist for Southport and first superintendent for the Fernley Observatory , which was built in the same year in Hesketh Park . In 1877 Sir Thomas Sebastian Bazley, 2nd Baronet (of Hatherop) gave Baxendell his 6 ” refractor made in 1869 by T. Cooke & Sons and the accompanying wooden dome, which were installed in his garden at 14 Liverpool Road.

Baxendell was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1884 . He was also a corresponding member of numerous other societies, such as the Physical-Economic Society in Königsberg or the Accademia di scienze e lettere in Palermo .

Joseph Baxendell died in Birkdale on October 7, 1887 at the age of 72. The 1865 marriage to Mary Anne, sister of the astronomer Norman Robert Pogson , had a son, Joseph Baxendell . His son succeeded him as borough meteorologist and superintendent of the Fernley Observatory.

Herbert H. Turner acquired the manuscripts from Baxendell after his death. Together with Mary Adela Blagg , Turner published eleven scientific publications from 1912 and 1918 on the variable stars from the manuscripts in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Blagg continued this work with six independent works in the Monthly Notices .

Works

Joseph Baxendell's first publication appeared in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1848 . In addition to the Monthly Notices , Baxendell also published in the Astronomische Nachrichten , The Observatory , the Journal of the Liverpool Astronomical Society and the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Most of the papers appeared in the Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society . The following list is a selection of his fonts.

  • George Knott, Joseph Baxendell: On the Method of Observing Variable Stars . Printed for Private Circulation, London 1863, bibcode : 1863AReg .... 1A ... 1K (English).
  • A New Nebular . In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . Vol. 48, 1888, pp. 48 , bibcode : 1880MNRAS..41 ... 48B (English).

literature

  • Thomas Espin : Joseph Baxendell, FRS, FRAS In: Astronomical News . tape 118 , no. 2819 , 1887, col. 175/176 , bibcode : 1887AN .... 118..175W (English).
  • James Bottomley: Memoir of the late Joseph Baxendell, FRS, FRAS In: Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society . 4th Series, Vol. 1, 1888, pp. 28–58 (English, archive.org ).
  • Joseph Baxendell . Obituary. In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . Vol. 48, No. 4, 1888, p. 157-160 , bibcode : 1888MNRAS..48..157. (English).
  • Charles William Sutton:  Baxendell, Joseph . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Suppl. 1, Volume 1:  Abbott-Childers. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1901, pp. 145 - 146 (English).
  • Richard Baum: Baxendell, Joseph . In: Thomas Hockey et al. (Ed.): The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers . Volume I (A-L). Springer Science + Business Media, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0 , pp. 103-104 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfgang Steinicke: Observing and Cataloging Nebulae and Star Clusters . From Herschel to Dreyer's New General Catalog. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-19267-5 , pp. 384 (English).
  2. ↑ Robert Hugh Kargon: Science in Victorian Manchester . Enterprise and Expertise. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Manchester 1977, pp. 75 (English).
  3. ↑ Joseph Baxendell: On the variability of λ Tauri . In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . Vol. 9, 1848, pp. 37–38 , bibcode : 1848MNRAS ... 9 ... 37B (English).
personal data
SURNAME Baxendell, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British astronomer and meteorologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1815
PLACE OF BIRTH Manchester
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1887
Place of death Birkdale