William Cranch Bond
William Bond was born in Maine in America on Sept 9th
1789. He co discovered the 8th satellite of Saturn, Hyperion and was
responsible for some of the earliest astronomical photography.
Bond was a watchmaker who became interested in astronomy
after observing the total solar eclipse of June 16th 1806 which was
total over America. He built a home observatory that was one of the finest in
the United States at that time.
Bond independently discovered many comets, at one point he
was the only American astronomer observing the Great Comet of 1811. In
recognition of his efforts, he was appointed the first astronomical observer at
Harvard College in 1839. He became the first director of the Harvard
Observatory in 1847 and was elected an associate of Britain’s Royal
Astronomical Society in 1849 the first American so honoured.
 |
| Harvard Observatory |
In 1848 Bond undertook extensive studies of the Orion Nebula
and Saturn, and on the 16th September of that year he discovered
Hyperion in collaboration with his son George Phillips Bond (1825–65). The
English astronomer William Lassell independently discovered Hyperion the same
night.
 |
| Hyperion as seen by Cassini |
On July 17th 1850 the Bonds took the first recognizable daguerreotype (an
early sort of camera) picture of a star, Vega the brightest star in the
constellation of Lyra.
 |
| Vega photographed through the 15 inch at Harvard |
That same year, they discovered the dark inner ring of
Saturn (the Crepe Ring), which Lassell discovered independently only a few
nights later.
 |
| C ring is the Crepe ring |
After William Bond died on Jan 29th 1859, his son
George Phillips Bond succeeded him as director of the Harvard Observatory.
No comments:
Post a Comment