Jeremiah Horrocks: Father of British Astronomy?

Presenter(s): Mr Ian A B Sullivan

Affiliation(s): Astronomical Society of Victoria, Mornington Peninsular Astronomical Society

Session details: Sunday, 2010-04-04 04:00:00

Abstract

Horrocks and his friend were the only viewers of the 1639 transit of Venus, and he died shortly afterward. His posthumous fame as an astronomer is the subject of a recent biography by Peter Aughton who awards him an illustrious title, despite his lowly status and early death. He revised Kepler’s planetary tables on the basis of his own observations, first predicted and observed a Venus transit, observed and measured perturbation of planets, and observed and attempted to explain lunar movement, and the occurrence of tides This paper describes these achievements in their historical and pre-Newtonian context, and the grounds for this adulation.

Biography

Ian joined the ASV in 1968 and in 1973, trained to be a guide at Melbourne Observatory, where he was the ASV coordinator from 1985 until 2000. Ian has presented adult education classes in astronomy and taken students to Ballarat Astronomical Society. He is now a member of the Mornington Peninsula Astronomical Society and regularly views at their site at Mt Martha. He has served as a Vice President of both ASV and MPAS and is currently on the MPAS Committee. Ian has presented papers at five NACAAs and has attended nearly all the VASTROC conferences, contributing to about half of them. Ian is no great observer, but leaves the armchair (and computer) frequently to acquire the understanding to describe the great astronomers in history. His Questar 3.5in reflector has been taken to several eclipses (Africa, Turkey, Ceduna) and transits of Mercury and Venus.