- Edward Pigott
Edward Pigott (1753 –
June 27 ,1825 ) was an Englishastronomer , and the son of astronomerNathaniel Pigott (1725-1804) and Anna Mathurine de Bériot (1727-1792). Probably born inWhitton, Middlesex , his elder brother, Charles Gregory, died in young age. He also had a younger sister, Mathurina (born 1761). He lived inEngland ,France andWales .Working as an astronomer with his father, he observed
Jupiter's satellites and, from a station nearCaen (Normandy, France), thetransit of Venus ofJune 3 ,1769 . OnMarch 23 ,1779 , from "Frampton House", Glamorganshire, he discovered anebula inComa Berenices , which later became known as M64. This discovery occurred just 12 days before that byBode and roughly a year beforeMessier 's independent rediscovery of the same object. Perhaps because of its late publication, Pigott's original discovery fell more or less forgotten and his "nebula" was apparently never identified, untilBryn Jones of Wales recovered it in April, 2002. Edward Pigott discovered theGreat comet of 1783 from York onNovember 19 ,1783 . This comet was independently found byPierre Méchain onNovember 26 and observed by several astronomers includingCharles Messier .On
September 10 ,1784 Edward Pigott detected the variability ofEta Aquilae , then known as "Eta Antinoi", and the first known representative of a class of variable stars later called Delta Cephei stars or, perhaps somewhat misleadingly, "Cepheids". This discovery occurred at a time when roughly a dozen variables were known, of which all but 6 werenovae orsupernovae .In the following years, Pigott worked with his neighbour and friend,
John Goodricke . Goodricke is reported to have died in 1786 from pneumonia he caught when observingDelta Cephei . Pigott died in Bath, England onJune 27 ,1825 .Edward Pigott, together with his father, Nathaniel Pigott, was honoured by having an
asteroid named after him: .Asteroid 10220 Pigott , discoveredOctober 20 ,1997 byR.A. Tucker of theGoodricke-Pigott Observatory , and provisionally designated 1997 UG7.References
*Edward Pigott, 1981. [VII.] Account of a Nebula in Coma Berenices. By Edward Pigott, Esq. In a Letter to Nevil Maskelyne, D.D.F.R.S. and Astronomer Royal (dated September 3, 1779). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LXXI (1781), p. 82-83. Available online.
*Agnes M. Clerk, 1896. Article on Edward Pigott in: Sir Sidney Lee (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. XLV, p. 284. Smith, Elder and Co., London 1896.
*Zdenek Kopal. Article on Edward Pigott and his father, Nathaniel Pigott, in: C. Gillispie (ed.). The Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
*Anita McConnell and Alison Brech, 1999. Nathaniel and Edward Pigott, Itinerant Astronomers. Notes and Records of the Royal Society London, Vol. 53, No. 3, p. 305-318.External links
* http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/Bios/pigott.html
* http://brynjones.members.beeb.net/wastronhist/p_pigotts.html
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