Biography
Edmond Halley (1656-1742)
Edmond Halley was born in Hagerstown, Middlesex, England (near London). His birth date is somewhat uncertain because it isn't known if at that time in his village the Gregorian or the Julian calendar was in use. There's also some dispute over the year. He got educated at Oxford and studied at Oxford University, Queen's College, 1673-6. He worked with John Flamsteed, the Royal Astronomer, in 1675\6 both in Oxford and Greenwich, and observed the occultation of Mars by the Moon on August 21,1676.
In November 1676, he gave up his studies without final exam, and sailed to St Helena on the southern hemisphere, in order to compile a catalogue of southern stars. The reasons for this are unknown, but it may be that he wanted to complement Flamsteed's mapping of the northern celestial hemisphere with the southern skies. Anyway, he compiled and published it on his return to England in 1678. Halley was elected to the Royal Society on November 30,1678, and King Charles II graduated him by mandate in 1679. That year, he was sent to Danzig to visit Hevelius. In the following years, he travelled around Europe, urged Isaac Newton to work out and publish his Principia.
Halley had observed a number of comets and after 1695, undertook deep studies to calculate their orbits. In 1705, he published his "Astronomiae Cometiae Synopsis", including his observation that the comet he had observed in 1682 had an orbit almost identical to those of the comets of 1531 and 1607, and concluded they were apparitions of the same comet, the return of which he predicted for 1758.
Halley died on January 14,1742 in Greenwich, England at the age of 87.
Edmond Halley was born in Hagerstown, Middlesex, England (near London). His birth date is somewhat uncertain because it isn't known if at that time in his village the Gregorian or the Julian calendar was in use. There's also some dispute over the year. He got educated at Oxford and studied at Oxford University, Queen's College, 1673-6. He worked with John Flamsteed, the Royal Astronomer, in 1675\6 both in Oxford and Greenwich, and observed the occultation of Mars by the Moon on August 21,1676.
In November 1676, he gave up his studies without final exam, and sailed to St Helena on the southern hemisphere, in order to compile a catalogue of southern stars. The reasons for this are unknown, but it may be that he wanted to complement Flamsteed's mapping of the northern celestial hemisphere with the southern skies. Anyway, he compiled and published it on his return to England in 1678. Halley was elected to the Royal Society on November 30,1678, and King Charles II graduated him by mandate in 1679. That year, he was sent to Danzig to visit Hevelius. In the following years, he travelled around Europe, urged Isaac Newton to work out and publish his Principia.
Halley had observed a number of comets and after 1695, undertook deep studies to calculate their orbits. In 1705, he published his "Astronomiae Cometiae Synopsis", including his observation that the comet he had observed in 1682 had an orbit almost identical to those of the comets of 1531 and 1607, and concluded they were apparitions of the same comet, the return of which he predicted for 1758.
Halley died on January 14,1742 in Greenwich, England at the age of 87.
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