John Henry Reynolds (1874–1949) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

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, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

who served as the president of the

Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NGO ...

between 1935 and 1937 and is known for his work on the classification of stellar bodies. An amateur, he was the son of Alfred John Reynolds, the Lord Mayor of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, who owned a company which cut nails. In 1899, at age 25, he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NGO ...

and in 1907, he financed the construction of a 30-inch

reflecting telescope A reflecting telescope (also called a reflector) is a telescope that uses a single or a combination of curved mirrors that reflect light and form an image. The reflecting telescope was invented in the 17th century by Isaac Newton as an alternati ...

Helwan Helwan ( ar, حلوان ', , cop, ϩⲁⲗⲟⲩⲁⲛ, Halouan) is a city in Egypt and part of Greater Cairo, on the bank of the Nile, opposite the ruins of Memphis. Originally a southern suburb of Cairo, it served as the capital of the now de ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

, the first large telescope to study objects in the such southerly skies. He also hand-constructed a 28-inch telescope in

Harborne Harborne is an area of south-west Birmingham, England. It is one of the most affluent areas of the Midlands, southwest from Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in ...

. Images from the Reynolds telescope was later used by

Gérard de Vaucouleurs Gérard Henri de Vaucouleurs (25 April 1918 – 7 October 1995) was a French astronomer. Life and career Born in Paris, he had an early interest in amateur astronomy and received his undergraduate degree in 1939 at the Sorbonne in that city. ...

in his system of classifying galaxies; Reynolds also published his own classification for spiral galaxies in 1920.

Edwin Hubble Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an Americans, American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Hubble proved that many objects ...

frequently corresponded with Reynolds, and some of his findings into the classification of stellar bodies seems at least inspired by his work. The

Hubble–Reynolds law The Hubble–Reynolds law models the surface brightness of elliptical galaxy, elliptical galaxies as :I(R) = \frac Where I(R) is the surface brightness at radius R, I_0 is the central brightness, and R_H is the radius at which the surface brig ...

, a formula for measuring the surface brightness of

elliptical galaxies An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work ''The Real ...

, is named after them.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, John 20th-century British astronomers 1874 births 1949 deaths Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society