Edward Joshua Cooper
Edward Joshua Cooper (May 1798 – 23 April 1863)[1] was an Irish landowner, politician and astronomer from Markree Castle in County Sligo.
[9] The observatory was expanded with a five-foot transit by Troughton, and a meridian-circle three feet in diameter, fitted with a seven-inch telescope which had been ordered in 1839 on a visit to the works of Ertel in Bavaria.
[3] Cooper's own diligent work in the observatory was joined in March 1842 by an assistant, Andrew Graham, who gave a fresh impulse to its activity.
Rockets were fired from Culkagh Mountain, about 6 miles north-east of Lough Allen, and the precise moment of their extinction was observed at both Markree and Armagh.
[11] Similar principles were applied on 10–12 August 1847, to calculate the difference of longitude between Markree and Killiney, ninety-eight miles away in County Dublin.
They brought the great refractor, which was mounted on a wooden stand with altitude and azimuth movements, was usd by Cooper to sketch the Orion nebula.
[3] From the time that the possibility of further planetary discoveries had been recalled to the attention of astronomers by the finding of Astræa 8 Dec 1845, Cooper had it in view to extend the star-maps then in progress at Berlin, so as to include stars of the twelfth or thirteenth magnitude.
A detailed acquaintance with ecliptical stars, however, was indispensable for the facilitation of planetary research—Cooper's primary object—and the Berlin maps covered only an equatorial zone of thirty degrees.
For this notable service to astronomy, in which he took a large personal share, Cooper received in 1858 the Cunningham gold medal of the Royal Irish Academy.
The elements and other data relative to 198 such bodies, gathered from scattered sources during several years, were finally arranged and published by him in a volume headed 'Cometic Orbits, with copious Notes and Addenda' (Dublin, 1852).
[14] Although partially anticipated by Galle's list of 178 sets of elements appended to the 1847 edition of Olbers's 'Abhandlung,' the physical and historical information collected in the notes remained of permanent value, and constituted the work a most useful manual of reference.
The preface contains statistics of the distribution in longitude of the perihelia and nodes of both planetary and cometary orbits, showing what seemed more than a chance aggregation in one semicircle.
In April he presented an anti-reform petition from County Sligo, and voted for the wrecking amendment which sank the bill and brought down the government.
A few days before the crucial vote he had told the Commons that the bill would cause "the total annihilation of Protestantism, by the increased influence in elections which it gives to the Catholics".
[4] Cooper played a significant part in the editorial work of the third edition of the pseudohistorical anti-Catholic pamphlet The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop.
Hislop praises Cooper's meticulous attention to detail, his extensive library and his views on Christianity, and thanks him for "the incalculable value of the service which the extraordinary labours of my kind and disinterested friend have rendered to the cause of universal Protestantism.
[23] The Obituary Notice in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1864 said he "was a kind and good landlord, making great exertions to educate and improve his numerous tenantry.
Blameless and fascinating in private life, he was a sincere Christian, no mean poet, an accomplished linguist, an exquisite musician, and possessed a wide and varied range of general information.
"[24] His estates were inherited by his nephew Edward Henry Cooper, who initially neglected the observatory, before appointing a series of directors.
The observatory's library was converted into a garage, and its books dumped into a hole in the floor of a neighbouring room, which was exposed to rain through an uncovered slit in the roof.
