Edward Pigott and the discovery of the Black Eye Galaxy

 This year is the 200^th anniversary of the death of Edward Pigott one of the ‘Fathers of Variable Star Astronomy’ this was a title I gave him and the deaf astronomer John Goodricke who between 1781-1786 would make incredible advances in the discovery and study of the branch of astronomy we know of today as variable stars.

 Pigott was born in Whitton, west London in 1753 and died on June 27^th, 1825. His life would make an incredible soap opera story, but much more of that later.

Here is the first of a series of highlights from his incredible career.

In 1777 with his father Nathaniel, Edward Pigott moved to Frampton House near Llantwit Major in Glamorganshire one of many of the Pigott’s estates. They had a rather impressive observatory there with several telescopes. These included a 6-foot long Dollond, a Watkins with a 2.5 inch lens and a 2.5-foot long telescope by Heath and Wing with a 5 inch mirror.

Edward although only 24 years old was already an experienced observer having helped his father make observations while living in France.

Since moving to Frampton House Pigott had been making observations of the night sky whenever he could.  On March 23^rd, 1779, Edward Pigott was observing the constellation of Coma Berenices when he discovered what he called a nebula. It was faint at magnitude 9.4 which is way below naked eye visibility. This today we know is a galaxy which is called the Black Eye galaxy.

The Black Eye galaxy is around 24 million light years from Earth, you would need a powerful pair of binoculars or a small telescope to see it. Then it would only appear as a small dot in the sky. If you go online, you will see some amazing photographs of the galaxy. There is a lot of dust in front of the galaxy which gives the impression of a black eye hence its name.

The German astronomer Johann Bode also saw it but 12 days after Pigott. In one of those strange twists of fate Pigott’s results were not published by the Royal Society until 1781 after the report from Bode. Initially Bode was credited with the discovery.

As at the time Bode was a very well-known astronomer and he had discovered many objects that would end up in the messier catalogue, he was initially credited with the discovery. In fact, many references through the late 20^th century incredibly still credited the discovery to Bode.

In 1780 the French astronomer Charles Messier saw it. He was looking for comets but kept finding lots of little smudges in the sky which he confused with comets.

Messier discovered around a dozen comets none of them very bright but his list of non-comet objects, his Messier list of 110 objects is still used by astronomers today. The Black Eye galaxy is number 64 on his list. Hence you will often see the galaxy that Pigott discovered recorded as M64

Today the records have been put straight, and Edward Pigott is officially credited with discovering this galaxy in Coma Berenices.

Although he did not realise it at the time this was the first of a series of major astronomical discoveries that would be made by Edward Pigott.

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