James Carpenter (1840–1899) was a British

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

at the Royal Observatory in

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

. During the 1860s he performed the first observations of stellar spectra at the observatory, under the direction of the

Astronomer Royal Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal dating from 22 June 1675; the junior is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland dating from 1834. The post ...

George Airy Sir George Biddell Airy (; 27 July 18012 January 1892) was an English mathematician and astronomer, and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the E ...

. In 1861–62 he was one of three astronomers to successfully observe the dark underside of the rings of Saturn, the other two astronomers being William Wray and

Otto Struve Otto Struve (August 12, 1897 – April 6, 1963) was a Russian-American astronomer of Baltic German origins. In Russian, his name is sometimes given as Otto Lyudvigovich Struve (Отто Людвигович Струве); however, he spent most o ...

. In 1871, the engineer

James Nasmyth James Hall Nasmyth (sometimes spelled Naesmyth, Nasmith, or Nesmyth) (19 August 1808 – 7 May 1890) was a Scottish engineer, philosopher, artist and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer. He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, ...

partnered with James Carpenter to produce a book about the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

titled, ''The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite''. This work was illustrated by photographs of plaster models representing the lunar surface, with the illumination from various angles. The result was more realistic images of the lunar surface than could be achieved by telescope photography during that period. The authors were proponents for a volcanic origin of the craters, a theory that was later proved incorrect. The crater Carpenter on the

is jointly named after him and

Edwin Francis Carpenter Edwin Francis Carpenter (November 1, 1898 – February 11, 1963) was an American astronomer. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and received his A.B. and A.M. from Harvard University. In 1925 he was awarded a Ph.D. from University of Califo ...

References

1840 births 1899 deaths 19th-century British astronomers {{UK-astronomer-stub