Astronomer Royal

The Astronomer Royal works to make observations to improve navigation, cartography, instrument design, and applications of geomagnetism.

[7] In 1703, Isaac Newton was elected President of the Royal Society and was upset with the lack of publications coming from the Greenwich Observatory under Flamsteed.

[8] In 1765, the Board of Longitude decided that the Astronomer Royal's observations were the property of the Crown and must be printed and published each year.

[10] Sir George Airy transformed the position from its original purpose of improving navigation to conducting more general astronomical and scientific research.

[11] With approval from the Board of Visitors in 1836, Airy created a Magnetic and Meteorological Department in the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

Six years after the death of Flamsteed, Historia Coelestis Britannica was published containing much of the data and theories he had spent his life working on both before and after his appointment as Astronomer Royal.

[9] Starting in 1725, Halley while serving as Astronomer Royal and a Commissioner on the Board of Longitude made very detailed and precise observations of the moon.

[17] The catalog contained more stars recorded to a much higher degree of accuracy than any other publication at the time, and impressed many other astronomers across Europe.

[20] Frank Dyson, the ninth Astronomer Royal, determined latitude variation caused by irregular movement of Earth's magnetic poles.

[22] The astronomer royal is mentioned in H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds, in George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London,[23] and in Thomas Pynchon's novel Mason & Dixon.

[24] He also makes an appearance in the lyrics of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance[25] and plays an important role in Fred Hoyle's novel The Black Cloud.