Photo by: ArtMechanic Creative Commons Newtonian telescope is a kind of reflecting telescope that has a concave primary mirror and a flat secondary mirror. It is patterned after the telescope invented by Sir Isaac Newton, the famous British astronomer and scientist who during the 17th century.

An exobiologist specializes in the field of exobiology. An exobiologist is also known as an astrobiologist or xenobiologist. Exobiology is the study of discovering whether life exists outside of earth in the universe. David Grinspoon defined it as a field of natural philosophy and grounding speculation on the unknown.

Sir William Huggins born on February 1824, was an English amateur astronomer. An amateur astronomer is someone who basically enjoys watching the night sky, enjoys backyard stargazing and observing the plethora of celestial bodies found on the vast atmosphere. Though this certain title does not focus on achieving scientific goals, they also make significant contributions in astronomy by tracking transient objects like comets and asteroids. Sir William Huggins contributed richly in the field of astronomical spectroscopy. He married Margaret Lindsay, [...]

Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer, a known member of the Fellow of the Royal Society was born on May 17, 1836. He was an English scientist and astronomer, with works of Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff on spectroscopic work inspired him so much that he decided to venture into spectral studies as well as his traditional astronomy studies.

Daniel Kirkwood, an American Astronomer, born September 27, 1814 in Harford County, Maryland, lived a humble and simple life. His journey towards academic excellence started at the very young age of nineteen, when he first ventured the life of teaching at a country school at Hopewell, York County, Pennsylvania. One of his pupils was keen to learn Algebra, something described by the young Daniel Kirkwood as something that uses the letters of the alphabets instead of figures. With a used [...]

Andres Jonas Angstrom, born on the 13th of August 1814 at Sweden, and was educated at Uppsala University where he was appointed private docent in 1839. It was in 1842 that he went to Stockholm Observatory to gain experience in practical astronomical work. In the following year, 1843, he was appointed keeper of the Astronomical Observatory in Uppsala. He became interested in terrestrial magnetism, and was tasked by the Stockholm Academy of Sciences to work out the magnetic data obtained [...]

Johann Gottfried Galle, a German astronomer, was famous for his assistance in the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846. Early in his life he worked as an assistant for Johann Franz Encke at the Berlin Observatory in 1835. Galle sent a copy of his PhD thesis on criticizing Ole Romer’s 1706 observations of Uranus, to Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier in Paris, France. A year later, Le Verrier responded by pointing to him the observations he found regarding the [...]

“Our eyes met and my fate was sealed, I felt irresistibly that we must be united.” These were the words the famous Sir George Biddell Airy, an English mathematician and astronomer wrote to his wife, Richarda Smith on July 1824. Sir George Biddell Airy, an astronomer royal holding a senior post in the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, is well-known not for the smoothness of the words he uttered to his wife, but for his remarkable pursuit for the determination [...]

Christiaan Huygens made a remarkable difference in Astronomy and Physics, but who is he? He is the son of Constantin Huygens and Suzanna van Baerle and was born on April 14, 1629 in The Hague, Netherlands. Having a dad who had a number of contacts and networks had exposed Christiaan to influences of Descartes, one of the famous mathematicians. He studied at the University of Leiden and took up Law and Mathematics; however he earned a degree at the College [...]

Born on June 8, 1625 in Perinaldo, Republic of Genova, this Italian–French man was the first to come up with an estimation of the Solar System’s Dimension. He was also the one to observe the four moons of Saturn and together with Robert Hooke, the discovery of the Great Red Spot on the planet, Jupiter. These are just a few of the contributions of Giovanni Domenico Cassini to the field of Astronomy. It is also worth noting that he was [...]