Benjamin+Apthorp+Gould

=BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD=

Benjamin Apthorp Gould is a famous American Astronomer from Massachusetts. Life in the mid-1800s was a time of prosper and learning. People wanted to learn new things and discover all that they could. Gould was a temperamental person, because of this he made many enemies in his lifetime. Early in Gould's career, he was very unhappy with his position and had many problems securing a job as an astronomer. Not long after this, he was invited to found and direct a national observatory in Argentina. He also helped found //The Astronomical Journal.// He was one of the first to use a telegraph to determine longitudes. He received the Gold Metal of the Royal Astronomical Society for one of his publications. =CONTRIBUTIONS=

Gould attended Gottingen and became the first American to receive a PhD in astronomy. In 1849 he founded // The Astronomical Journal //. It hit financial problems in 1861 and was placed on the back burner until 1886, when he started it up again. It is still read today. It is a place astronomical research and to published and read. In 1868 he went to Argentina and founded the National Observatory at Cordoba. He also directed it.  From 1870 to 1874 he worked on and completed his // Uranometria Argentina. // A zone catalog published by Gould in 1884 covered 73,160 stars in the sky. Not long after Gould published a general catalog of stars (32,448 stars to be exact) in the Southern Hemisphere too. In 1855 he became director of the Dudley observatory in Albany, New York. He stayed there until 1859. In 1869 he issued a volume of // Military and Anthropological Statistics. // He later made measurements of L. M. Rutherfurd’s photographs of the Pleiades. This made him a great pioneer of Astronomy in his time. He set many standards for American Astronomers in his lifetime that are still used today. He received the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal at age 59 for many of his achievements. =LATER IN YEARS=

He returned to Massachutes in 1885 and stayed there til he past in 1896. He died November 26, 1896 at the age of 72.In honor of his accomplishments and in his memory his daughter, Alice Gould etsablished an award for American Astronomers. It recgonizes the person of a great accomplishment and is a great honor.