James Craig Watson

James Craig Watson
Portrait of Watson
Born	(1838-01-28)January 28, 1838 Fingal, Ontario, Canada
Died	November 23, 1880(1880-11-23) (aged 42) Madison, Wisconsin, US
Nationality	Canadian
Education	University of Michigan
Alma mater	University of Michigan
Occupation	professor, physicist, astronomer
Known for	Discovery of comets and asteroids
Awards	Lalande Prize

James Craig Watson (January 28, 1838 – November 22, 1880) was a Canadian-American astronomer, discoverer of comets and minor planets, director of the University of Michigan's Detroit Observatory in Ann Arbor, and awarded with the Lalande Prize in 1869.^[1][2]

Biography[]

Watson was born in the village of Fingal, Ontario Canada. His family relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1850. At age 15 he was matriculated at the University of Michigan, where he studied the classical languages. He graduated with a BA in 1857 and received a master's degree on examination after two years' study in astronomy under professor Franz Brünnow.^[3] He became Professor of Physics and instructor in Mathematics, and in 1863, succeeded him as professor of Astronomy and director of the Detroit Observatory. He wrote the textbook Theoretical Astronomy, published in 1868 by J. B. Lippincott & Co. The textbook was a standard reference work for over thirty years.^[1]

He discovered 22 asteroids, beginning with 79 Eurynome in 1863. One of his asteroid discoveries, 139 Juewa was made in Beijing when Watson was there to observe the 1874 transit of Venus. The name Juewa was chosen by Chinese officials (瑞華, or in modern pinyin, ruìhuá). Another was 121 Hermione in 1872, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and this asteroid was found to have a small asteroid moon in 2002.^[4]

He was a member of the most important expeditions for astronomical observation sent out by the United States Government during his time.^[3] The first was an expedition to observe the eclipse of the Sun at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in 1869; the second of a similar expedition to Sicily, in 1870; the third to Beijing, China, to observe the transit of Venus in 1874; the fourth to Wyoming, to observe the total eclipse of the sun in 1878. He was a strong believer in the existence of the planet Vulcan, a hypothetical planet closer to the Sun than Mercury, which is now known not to exist (however the existence of small Vulcanoid planetoids remains a possibility). He believed he had seen such two such planets during his observation of the 1878 solar eclipse.

The James Craig Watson Medal

In 1879, after attempts by the university to retain him, Watson resigned his professorship at Ann Arbor to accept a position the University of Wisconsin, where he hoped to find superior apparatus and instruments for the difficult observations which he had planned. Seeking to silence critics who doubted his claims to have discovered Vulcan, he also personally paid to construct an underground observatory, in a misguided attempt to observe planets in the daytime.^[5] This was based on the idea that stars could be seen during the day from the bottom of a well, which is an ancient myth but verifiably incorrect. (It is not merely direct glare from the Sun that hides the stars, but scattered light from the atmosphere above the well.)^[6]

Watson died of peritonitis at the age of 42 and was buried at Forest Hill, Ann Arbor.^[3] He had amassed a considerable fortune through non-astronomical business activities and, by bequest, established the James Craig Watson Medal, awarded every two years by the National Academy of Sciences for contributions to astronomy. His successor, Edward Holden, completed Watson's underground observatory, but declared it useless after he found not even the brightest stars could be observed.^[5]

Honors and awards[]

Watson won the Lalande Prize given by the French Academy of Sciences for 1869.^[8] He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Leipzig in 1870, and from Yale College in 1871, and the degree of Doctor of Laws from Columbia in 1877.^[3]

The main-belt asteroid 729 Watsonia is named in his honour, as is the lunar crater Watson.^[2]

References[]

• Richard Baum and William Sheehan (1997). In Search of Planet Vulcan, The Ghost in Newton's Clockwork Machine. ISBN 978-0-306-45567-4.

External links[]

• "Biography". Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
• "James Craig Watson papers: 1855–1881". Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
• Obituary, Scientific American, "James C. Watson", 25 December 1880, p. 405