Ralph Copeland

Ralph Copeland ( born September 3, 1837 in Woodplumpton ( Lancashire ), † 27 October 1905 Edinburgh) was a British astronomer and Astronomer Royal for Scotland, the third.

Copeland studied from 1865 to 1867 astronomy at the Georg -August- University of Göttingen, and remained until 1869 at the local observatory. 1869/70 he participated in the second German North Polar Expedition in part, led by Captain Carl Koldewey, who named a Cape of Shannon Island after him. Later Greenland expeditions forgave the name Copeland Copeland Fjord and Glacier. Subsequently, Copeland worked at the private observatory of William Parsons on his country estate in Parsonstown. The Venus Transit of 1874 he observed on Mauritius, 1882 in Jamaica.

From 29 January 1889 to 1905, he worked as Astronomer Royal for Scotland.

Ralph Copeland discovered 35 NGC objects, most of them with the 72 -inch reflector of William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse. Seven of them in the Leo constellation be called the Copeland septet.