Joel Hastings Metcalf

Joel Hastings Metcalf ( born January 4, 1866 in Meadville, Pennsylvania, † February 23, 1925 in Portland, Maine) was an American astronomer.

The son of Lewis Herbert and Anna (nee Hicks ) Metcalf developed at the age of 14 years with an interest in astronomy inspired by a borrowed book and two close conjunctions of the planets Jupiter and Mars. He attended the Meadville Theological Seminar and the Harvard Divinity School and earned his doctorate degree in 1892 at Allegheny College. Subsequently, he served first as a Unitarian minister in Burlington, Vermont, and later in Taunton, Massachusetts, Winchester, Massachusetts and Portland, Maine, where he died in 1925.

As an amateur astronomer, he used regular contact with professors at universities and observatories. He discovered 41 asteroids, comets and 5 different variable stars.

Joel H. Metcalf was married to Elizabeth S. Lockman and had two children: Dr. Herbert E. Metcalf and Rachel Metcalf Stoneham.