Hind

Hind, JOHN RUSSELL, astronomer, was born at Nottingham, May 12, 1823. At an early period he became an enthusiast in the study of astronomy, and in 1840 obtained, through the influence of Professor Wheatstone, a situation in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, where he remained till June 1844. Hind was then sent as one of the commission appointed to determine the exact longitude of Valentia, and on his return became the observer in Mr Bishop's Observatory, Regent's Park, London. Here he calculated the orbits and declination of more than seventy planets and comets, noted a number of new movable stars, and between 1847 and 1854 discovered ten minor planets (see PLANETOIDS). In 1851 Hind obtained from the Academy of Sciences at Paris their Lalande medal, and was elected a corresponding member; in 1852 he obtained the Astronomical Society of London's gold medal, and a pension of £200 a year from the British government; in 1853 he undertook the editing of the Nautical Almanac. Hind's scientific papers were generally published in the Transactions of the Astronomical Society, in the Comptes Rendus of Paris, and the Astronomische Nachrichten of Altona. Amongst his works are Astronomical Vocabulary (1852), The Comets (1852), The Solar System (1852), Illustrated London Astronomy (1853), Elements of Algebra (1855), and Descriptive Treatise on Comets (1857). For a time president of the Royal Astronomical Society, he died 23d December 1895.