Edward James Stone (28 February 18316 May 1897) was an English astronomer. He was born in Notting Hill, London to Edward and Sarah Stone. Educated at the City of London School, he obtained a studentship at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

, and in 1856 a scholarship at

Queens' College, Cambridge Queens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Queens' is one of the oldest colleges of the university, founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. The college spans the River Cam, colloquially referred to as the "light s ...

, where he graduated as fifth wrangler in 1859, and was immediately elected fellow of his college. The following year he succeeded the Rev.

Robert Main The Reverend Robert Main (12 July 1808 – 9 May 1878) was an English astronomer. Life Born at Upnor in Kent, he was the eldest son of Thomas Main; Thomas John Main the mathematician was a younger brother. Robert Main attended school ...

as chief assistant at the

Royal Greenwich Observatory The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG; known as the Old Royal Observatory from 1957 to 1998, when the working Royal Greenwich Observatory, RGO, temporarily moved south from Greenwich to Herstmonceux) is an observatory situated on a hill in G ...

, and at once undertook the fundamental task of improving astronomical constants. The most important of these, the sun's mean

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...

, was at that time subject to considerable uncertainty. He obtained a value for the solar parallax by observations of Mars in 1860 and 1862. He later refined his estimate by examining observations of the transit of Venus of 1769. He also studied the

lunar parallax The most important fundamental distance measurements in astronomy come from trigonometric parallax. As the Earth orbits the Sun, the position of nearby stars will appear to shift slightly against the more distant background. These shifts are an ...

, and determined the mass of the Moon, and obtained a value for the constant of nutation. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1868. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1869, and on the resignation of Sir Thomas Maclear in 1870 he was appointed Her Majesty's astronomer at the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...

. His first task on taking up this post was the reduction and publication of a large mass of observations left by his predecessor, from a selected portion of which (those made 1856–1860) he compiled a catalogue of 1,159 stars. His principal work was, however, a catalogue of 12,441 stars to the 7th magnitude between the South Pole and 25°S declination, which was practically finished by the end of 1878 and published in 1881. Shortly after the death of Main on 9 May 1878, Stone was appointed to succeed him as Radcliffe Observer at Oxford, and he left the Cape on 27 May 1879. At Oxford he extended the Cape observations of stars to the 7th magnitude from 25°S declination to the

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...

, and collected the results in the Radcliffe catalogue for 1890, which contains the places of 6,424 stars. Stone observed the transit of Venus of 1874 at the Cape, and organized the government expeditions for the corresponding event in 1882. He was elected President of the Royal Astronomical Society (1882–1884), and he was the first to recognize the importance of the old observations accumulated at the Radcliffe Observatory by Hornsby, Robertson and Rigaud. He successfully observed the total

solar eclipse A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of the Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six month ...

of 8 August 1896 at

Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; rus, Но́вая Земля́, p=ˈnovəjə zʲɪmˈlʲa, ) is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, ...

, and intended a voyage to India for the eclipse of 1898, but died suddenly at the Radcliffe Observatory. The number of his astronomical publications exceeds 150, but his reputation depends mainly on his earlier work at Greenwich and his two great star catalogues—the Cape catalogue for 1880 and the Radcliffe catalogue for 1890. He had married Grace Tuckett; they had at least four children.

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Edward Stone from 1850 to 1910
@ Astrophysics Data System {{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Edward James 1831 births 1897 deaths People from Notting Hill 19th-century British astronomers Alumni of King's College London Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge People educated at the City of London School Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Fellows of the Royal Society Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society Fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge Burials at St Sepulchre's Cemetery