Stephen Groombridge FRS (7 January 1755 – 30 March 1832) was a British merchant and

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 o ...

Life

He was born at

Goudhurst Goudhurst is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. It lies in the Weald, around south of Maidstone, on the crossroads of the A262 and B2079. The parish consists of three wards: Goudhurst, Kilndown an ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

on 7 January 1755. He succeeded when about 21 to the business in

West Smithfield Smithfield, properly known as West Smithfield, is a district located in Central London, part of Farringdon Without, the most westerly ward of the City of London, England. Smithfield is home to a number of City institutions, such as St Barth ...

of a linen draper named Greenland, to whom he had been apprenticed. Later, and until 1816, he was a successful West India merchant. He lived mainly at Goudhurst, where he built a small observatory; but moved to Blackheath in 1802. In 1806, using a then new transit circle built by Edward Troughton, he began compiling a

star catalogue A star catalogue is an astronomical catalogue that lists stars. In astronomy, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. There are a great many different star catalogues which have been produced for different purposes over the years ...

of stars down to about eighth or ninth magnitude. He spent ten years making observations on the Groombridge Transit Circle and another ten years doing reductions of the data (correcting for

refraction In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomen ...

, instrument error and clock error). In 1827 he suffered a "severe attack of paralysis" from which he never fully recovered. Others continued the work, continuing with corrections for aberration and

nutation Nutation () is a rocking, swaying, or nodding motion in the axis of rotation of a largely axially symmetric object, such as a gyroscope, planet, or bullet in flight, or as an intended behaviour of a mechanism. In an appropriate reference fra ...

among others. Groombridge died in Blackheath. His ''Catalogue of Circumpolar Stars'' was published posthumously in 1838 with the help of fellow astronomer

George Biddell 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 ...

and others. An earlier edition had been published in 1833 but was found to contain errors and was withdrawn. In 1842, one of the stars in his catalogue, Groombridge 1830, was discovered by Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander to have a very high

proper motion Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...

. For many decades its proper motion was the highest known; today it still occupies third place.

Selected writings

* - edited by George Biddell Airy; has biographical information for Groombridge

Notes

External links

Brief biography

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Groombridge, Stephen 1755 births 1832 deaths People from Goudhurst 19th-century British astronomers Fellows of the Royal Society

Life

Selected writings

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links