The man who brought 2 Cooke telescopes, changed his name and was murdered.

Henry John Tuberville who was formerly known as Henry John Blackmore was something of an eccentric with a taste for science and in particular astronomy. He was the elder brother of Richard Doddridge Blackmore who wrote ‘Lorna Doone’ 

As Henry Blackmore in April 1865 he brought a 4.5 inch educational telescope from Thomas Cooke & Sons and in October 1866 as Henry Tuberville he brought a 5.5 inch telescope with a finder, 6 eyepieces, sun prism on an equatorial mounting, strong but as light as possible, on a stout polished mahogany stand. With both telescopes his address was the village of Pilton near Barnstable in Devon. 

He changed his name in 1865 it appears due to some family issues, Tuberville was a Catholic family name and he appears to have changed his name with the aim of offending his Church of England relatives. 

I cannot find as yet any evidence of any astronomical observations he made or whether he was a member of any astronomical societies in Devon. I also have no idea what happened to his two Cooke telescopes. 

Henry Blackmore was born in Berkshire in 1824, his father John Blackmore would become the vicar of Ashford near Barnstable in Devon. In 1857 he inherited some money after an uncle died, and by the time of his death had amassed a fortune of £20,000 which today is worth £2.4 million.  

In 1875 when he was 51 Henry Tuberville started to visit Yeovil in Somerset where he became engaged to Elizabeth Maggs who was 23 and the daughter of a chemist Thomas Maggs, he had made several wills the last in 1875 he left everything to Thomas Maggs and his family. There were not surprisingly many objections to the will. 

He was taken poorly on August 16^th 1875 and as he was a chemist Thomas Maggs was called in to see him, he apparently had a great pain in his leg, the following day he died. The physician Dr. Allridge stated that Tuberville had taken potassium cyanide, although it was never decided how he hot this poison. In the end a jury decided that in a state of unsound mind Tuberville had taken the potassium cyanide.  

His brother Richard, believed that Henry had been murdered and tried to get the inquest re opened in this he failed. The mystery is still there today did he commit suicide or was he murdered?

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A Thomas Cooke & Sons telescope stand for John Couch Adams

 Thomas Cooke & Sons of York had a very interesting number of celebrated and famous customers. 

 In 1859 John Couch Adams of the discovery of Neptune fame ordered a universal portable equatorial stand of best construction to carry a telescope of 3.5 inch aperture. 

As far as I know the telescope was not made by Thomas Cooke, but I do not have any further information regarding this telescope. Maybe if he had it in 1846 he could have looked for the planet we now call Neptune!!

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It's winter yet the Earth is closest to the Sun!

 It’s January, the beginning of another year, and although we are in winter, the Earth will be closest to the Sun. The closest point, or ‘Perihelion’, occurs on January 4 when Earth will be just 91,405,993 miles (147,103,686 km) away from its star. That’s in contrast to six months from now when, on July 3, Earth reaches ‘Aphelion’, its most distant point from the Sun, when we will be 94,502,939 miles (152,087,737 km) away. 

In the northern hemisphere, we experience winter in January, so it can seem counter-intuitive to learn that the Earth is now at its closest to the Sun. However, the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun in January, while the southern hemisphere, which is tilted towards the Sun, has summer. In six months’ time of course the positions will be reversed.

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Quadrantid Meteor Shower Jan 3rd

On the night of January 3rd, we have the Quadrantid meteor shower when around 40 to 70 meteors per hour can be seen. The Quadrantids do have one very important claim to fame in that theirs is the only meteor shower named after a constellation that no longer exists. A meteor shower is named after the constellation the meteors appear to come from, in this case the Mural Quadrant. In 1930 when the modern constellation boundaries were defined, the Mural Quadrant was discarded, as were many other old constellations. As this meteor shower was known during the nineteenth century, we still recognise the defunct constellation in its name.   

It is believed that the Quadrantids, unlike most meteor showers, are associated not with a comet but with an asteroid, which is also the case for the Geminid meteor shower we see in December. In the case of the Quadrantids, it is believed to be asteroid 2003 EH1.

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