| RefNo | EC/1865/03 |
| Previous numbers | Cert X, 71 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Dawes, William Rutter: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Date | 1865 |
| Citation | Since 1830 a Fellow of the Roy Astr Society. With the exception of the 4 1/2 yrs during which he made the Double-star Observations at the South Villa Observatory (belonging to the late Mr Bishop), he has had an Astronomical Observatory in active operation from the year 1830 until the present time, employed in measurement of double stars and scrutiny of the heavenly bodies with equatoreally mounted telescopes of 3 3/4 to 8 1/4 inches aperture.
With a Munich object-glass of 6 1/3 in aperture he discovered the obscure ring of Saturn on the 25th & 29th of November, 1850, independently. In 1851 he contrived a solar eye-piece by means of which he discovered that the umbra of a solar spot is not really black, as previously supposed, but consists of a cloud-like stratum below the penumbra & usually having in it a perfectly black aperture forming the true nucleus (Mem RAS vol xxi, Part 2). He first proposed the use of certain telescopic apertures as a means of accurately detemining the magnitudes of stars (see Monthly Notices RAS 1851 June 13). He has contributed several papers printed in the Memoirs of the RAS & in the Monthly Notices, on the phenomena of the Total Solar Eclipse observed in Sweden in 1851, & on the telescopic appearances of Jupiter and of Saturn's rings, besides two series of the positions & distances of double-stars & notices of the Discovery of several new ones. |
| Proposers | From Personal Knowledge. Warren De la Rue; G B Airy; James Glaisher; Robert Main; John Phillips; J Challis; Rosse; J F W Herschel; R C Carrington; E W Brayley; A Strange |
| Extent | 1 sheet |
| AccessStatus | Open |
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Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA1247 | Dawes; William Rutter (1799 - 1868); astronomer | 1799 - 1868 |