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 in Portsea, Portsmouth before studying mathematics 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 sixth wrangler in 1834. He served for twenty-five years (1835–60) as First 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 published numerous articles, particularly on stellar and planetary motion, stellar parallax, and the dimensions and shapes of the planets. From 1841 to 1861 he was successively an honorary secretary, a vice-president, and President of the Royal Astronomical Society, and in 1858 was awarded the Society's

Gold Medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...

. In 1860 he became director of Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford University after the death of

Manuel Johnson Manuel Johnson (born October 14, 1986) is a former wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) for the Dallas Cowboys. He played college football at the University of Oklahoma. Early years Johnson attended North Garland High School as ...

, and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. An ordained priest of the Church of England, he preached regularly while living in Greenwich. Main completed the questionnaire on which

Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton, FRS FRAI (; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911), was an English Victorian era polymath: a statistician, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto- ...

based his ''English Men of Science'' (1874), and his recorded answers included the following comments: :"I take considerable pains in the investigation of religious matters, one of my amusements being the collection of a considerable theological library, with the books of which I am familiar." :"I am not aware of any innate taste for science... My interest in astronomy, especially, was very small indeed until I was appointed."

Works

Main supervised the third (1859) edition of Sir

John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wor ...

's ''A Manual of Scientific Enquiry, prepared for the use of Her Majesty's Navy and adapted for travellers in general'' (1849), which included an article on geology by Charles Darwin. His textbook ''Rudimentary Astronomy'' appeared in 1852, a second astronomical book, ''Practical and Spherical Astronomy'' was published in 1863. He was responsible for editing the Second Radcliffe Catalogue (1870), which detailed 6,317 stars, and (with Charles Pritchard) Herschel's ''Catalogue of 10,300 multiple and double stars'' (1874). He also published observations made of rainfall in Oxford over 25 years from 1851 to 1875, and contributed to the ''Fortnightly Review'' during the editorship of G. H. Lewes. His other works include the annual address for 1875 to the Philosophical Society at the Victoria Institute (entitled ''Modern Philosophic Scepticism Examined'') and a sermon on I Corinthians 1:22-24 given to the

British Association for the Advancement of Science The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chie ...

in the same year.

Legacy

The lunar crater Main is named after Robert Main, and there is also a crater on Mars named after him.

References

* V. L. Hilts "A Guide to Francis Galton's English Men of Science" ''Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc.'' (New Ser.) 65 (5), 1-85 (1975) * B. C. Williams ''George Eliot; a biography'' (1936)

External links

Obituary

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070204125327/http://darwin.lib.cam.ac.uk/perl/nav?pclass=calent Correspondence with Charles Darwin {{DEFAULTSORT:Main, Robert 1808 births 1878 deaths 19th-century British astronomers 19th-century English Anglican priests People from Upnor Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society Fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge Burials at St Sepulchre's Cemetery