Horace Parnell Tuttle

Horace Parnell Tuttle (* March 17, 1837; † August 16, 1923 ) was an American astronomer.

Life

1857 Tuttle was an assistant at the Harvard College Observatory. He discovered several comets, and was co-discoverer of Comet Swift -Tuttle ( the cause of the meteor shower of the Perseids ) and Tempel-Tuttle ( the cause of the meteor stream of Leonids ). He was supported by Asaph Hall, who calculated the orbits of the heavenly bodies. In addition, Tuttle discovered the asteroid (66 ) and Maja (73 ) Clytia (see list of asteroids ).

In 1862 he left Harvard and participated for nine months in the American Civil War, where he served as paymaster. In the following years he was employed by the United States Navy and participated in several geographical missions.

From 1884, he joined as an astronomer back on and worked at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC

Honors

The asteroid ( 5036 ) Tuttle was named after him.