Arthur Matthew Weld Downing
British astronomer (1850-1917)
Arthur Matthew Weld Downing (13 April 1850 – 8 December 1917) was an Anglo-Irish mathematician and astronomer. Downing's major contribution to astronomy is in the calculation of the positions and movements of astronomical bodies, as well as being a founder of the British Astronomical Association.
Early life and education
Downing was born in County Carlow on 13 April 1850, the younger son of Arthur Matthew Downing and Mary Weld. He attended Nutgrove School, near Rathfarnham, Dublin under the tuition Philip Jones. He then went on to study in Trinity College Dublin, from 1866, receiving a scholarship in science graduating with a BA in 1871 with a gold medal in mathematics. Downing went on to receive a Masters in 1881, and an honorary Doctor of Science in 1893.
Career
He became an assistant at the Royal Greenwich Observatory on 17 January 1873. He was first in charge of the manuscripts and library, followed by the time department, and then the circle computations. One of his areas of study was that of the altazimuth or horizontal coordinate system, as well as bring one of the four observers of the transit circle and altazimuth. In 1875, Downing was elected as a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, contributing 75 papers dealing primarily with correcting errors in the star catalogues and the computation of the motions of astronomical bodies.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arthur Matthew Weld Downing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.