Richard A. Proctor

Richard Anthony Proctor ( born March 23, 1837 in Chelsea, † September 12, 1888 in New York City ), was a British astronomer and author of popular science works. He made one of the first maps of Mars.

Proctor was a sickly child. When his father died in 1850, his mother first taught him at home. His health improved over the years and he was able to visit the Kings College in London and later the St John 's College. He then studied at Cambridge University, where he graduated in 1860. Already during his studies he got married. The marriage produced a daughter emerged.

Proctor turned to astronomy and published in 1865 in the " Cornhill Magazine" an article about the colors of double stars. In the same year his first book Saturn and its system, which he published at his own expense appeared. Although the extensive work with astronomers was well received, it was not sold very often. There followed treatises on Mars, Jupiter, Sun, Moon, comets, meteors, stars and nebulous objects.

With his literary work Proctor feed his family. Since he had to recognize that a more scientific work, such as Saturn and its system, no major sales was, he acquired a popular writing style. He wrote for several magazines and reached a high level of awareness. His many works made ​​a large readership with the basics of astronomy familiar.

His Manual Handbook of the Stars of 1866 was rejected by publishers. Proctor also had this book even print; it sold quite well. For his Half- Hours with the Telescope (1868 ), which reached 20 editions, he received from the publisher only £ 25 Although he was not a teaching position, Proctor taught mathematics at times to supplement his income.

His literary reputation continued to grow and he wrote regularly for The Intellectual Observer, Chambers Journal, Popular Science Review. In 1870 he published his Other Worlds than Ours, in which he described the possibility of other inhabited worlds.

In 1881 he founded the magazine in general scientific knowledge, the weekly, monthly and in 1885 appeared at first a considerable spread found. He wrote for the American Cyclopaedia and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 1866 he was elected to the Royal Astronomical Society.

Proctor dealt with the distribution of stars, star clusters and nebulae, as well as the structure of the universe. He became an expert in the making of maps and published two star atlases. A card that contained all of the stars of the Bonner Durchmusterung ( up to 10th magnitude ), the distribution of the stars showed in the northern sky.

Proctor evaluated old drawings of Mars, dating back to 1666, in order to determine the rotational period of the planet. In 1873 he gave to the Martian day with 24 37m 22.713 s - this corresponds very exactly with the present value of 24h 37m 22.663 s. He made a map of Mars, where he was based on 27 drawings of the astronomer William Rutter Dawes. The card, however, was later supplanted by the works of Giovanni Schiaparelli and Eugène Antoniadi and Proctors not accepted names of geographical features (eg, is his " Kaiser Sea ," which he named after the astronomer Frederik Kaiser, now known as the Great Syrtis ).

1881 Proctor married for the second time and moved to the USA in order. In 1888, he died in New York. His most extensive work Old and New Astronomy he could not accomplish. It was completed by A. Cowper Ranyard and 1892 issued. His daughter from his first marriage Mary Proctor, was also an astronomer and successful writer.

Richard A. Proctor, who died of yellow fever in the Willard Parker Hospital ( Manhattan), was buried in a temporary Reverend Stephen Merritt ( 1833-1917 ) at the Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens (New York City ) provided grave. His final resting he took in 1893 at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where George W. Childs, a well-known publisher of Philadelphia, he had a magnificent grave monument erected. At the reburial ceremony also Proctor's daughter Mary took part.

At Proctors commemorate an impact crater on Mars was named.