William Cranch Bond

William Cranch Bond (September 9, 1789 – January 29, 1859) was an American astronomer, and the first director of Harvard College Observatory. Jump to: navigation, search ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (880x1125, 160 KB) Summary William Cranch Bond (1789-09-09 – 1859-01-29) was an American astronomer, and the first director of Harvard College Observatory. ... Jump to: navigation, search ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (880x1125, 160 KB) Summary William Cranch Bond (1789-09-09 – 1859-01-29) was an American astronomer, and the first director of Harvard College Observatory. ... September 9 is the 252nd day of the year (253rd in leap years). ... 1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... January 29 is the 29th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1859 is a common year starting on Saturday. ... An astronomer or astrophysicist is a scientist whose area of research is astronomy or astrophysics. ... Jump to: navigation, search Harvard College Observatory, about 1900. ...

Upbringing

William Cranch Bond was born in Falmouth, Maine (now Portland, Maine) on September 9, 1789. When he was young, his father, William Bond, established himself as a clockmaker after a failed business venture; trained by his father and aided by his penchant for engineering, W. C. Bond built his first clock when he was fifteen years old. He eventually took over his father’s business, becoming an expert clockmaker himself. Falmouth is a town located in Cumberland County, Maine. ... Location in Maine Founded  -Incorporated 1786   County Cumberland County Mayor Jill C. Duson Area  - Total  - Water 136. ... September 9 is the 252nd day of the year (253rd in leap years). ... 1789 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... William Cranch Bond (September 9, 1789 – January 29, 1859) was an American astronomer, and the first director of Harvard College Observatory. ... A clockmaker is one who primarily repairs clocks, although historically this person also made clocks. ...

Amateur Astronomer

In 1806, when he was seventeen years old, Bond saw a solar eclipse. Soon thereafter, he became an avid amateur astronomer. When he built his first house, Bond made its parlor an observatory, complete with an opening in the ceiling out of which his telescope could view the sky. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Trip to Europe

In 1815, Bond traveled to Europe, commissioned by Harvard University to gather information on European observatories. In 1819, soon after he returned from Europe, Bond married his first cousin, Selina Cranch, who bore him four sons and two daughters. After her death in 1831, Bond married her older sister, Mary. Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ...

Harvard Observatory

In 1839, Bond was allowed to move his personal astronomical equipment to Harvard and serve as its (unpaid) "Astronomical Observer to the University." Later, in 1843, a sun-grazing comet aroused enough public interest in astronomy that Harvard was able to raise $25,730 towards the construction of a state-of-the-art observatory. Bond designed the building and the observing chair (both of which are still in working order today), and Harvard bought a fifteen-inch German-built refracting telescope, equal in size to the largest in the world at the time. The telescope was first put to use on June 24, 1847, when it was pointed to the moon. The 50 cm refractor at Nice Observatory. ... Crust composition Oxygen 43% Silicon 21% Aluminium 10% Calcium 9% Iron 9% Magnesium 5% Titanium 2% Nickel 0. ...

Discoveries

• Independently discovered the Great Comet of 1811
• Bond and his son George Phillips Bond discovered Saturn's moon Hyperion; it was independently co-discovered at the same time by William Lassell in Britain, and both are given credit.
• Father and son were the first to observe Saturn’s inner, or “crape,” ring when they pointed Harvard’s telescope towards Saturn in 1850.
• Working with John Adams Whipple, the Bonds pioneered astrophotography, taking the first daguerreotype image of a star (Vega, in 1850) ever taken from America. (In all, the threesome took between 200 and 300 photos of celestial objects.)

The Great Comet of 1811 (formally designated C/1811 F1) was a comet that was visible to the naked eye for around 260 days. ... George Phillips Bond (May 20, 1825 – February 17, 1865) was an American astronomer. ... Atmospheric characteristics Atmospheric pressure 140 kPa Hydrogen >93% Helium >5% Methane 0. ... Hyperion (hye-peer-ee-un, Greek ‘Υπερίων) is a moon of Saturn discovered by William Cranch Bond, George Phillips Bond and William Lassell in 1848. ... William Lassell (June 18, 1799 – October 5, 1880) was a British astronomer, born in Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. ... Jump to: navigation, search John Adams Whipple (September 10, 1822–1891) was an American inventor and early photographer. ... Astrophotography is a specialised type of photography that entails taking photographs of items in the night sky such as planets, stars, and deep sky objects. ... An early daguerreotype, claimed by some to be Abraham Lincoln, although many experts disagree with this claim. ... Vega (α Lyr / α Lyrae / Alpha Lyrae) is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, and the fifth brightest star in the sky. ...

Legacy

A number of celestial objects have been named in Bond's honor. A few of them include:

• A crater on the moon is named "Bond"
• A region on Hyperion is called the "Bond-Lassel Dorsum"
• A "Bondia" asteroid.

External links

• MNRAS 9 (1848) 1: Discovery of a new satellite of Saturn

References

• Harvard's site on Bond and their observatory
• Gillespie, Charles Couston, editor-in-chief. Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol 2. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970-80, [ISBN 068480588X])