Британдық астроном Джеймс Саут және оның ғылыми еңбектері

British astronomer

Sir James South FRS FRSE PRAS FLS LLD (October 1785 – 19 October 1867) was a British astronomer. He was a joint founder of the Astronomical Society of London, and it was under his name, as President of the Society in 1831, that a petition was successfully submitted to obtain a Royal Charter, whereupon it became the Royal Astronomical Society.

He was born in Southwark in London in October 1785, the son of James South, a pharmaceutical chemist. John Flint South was his younger half brother. He originally trained as a chemist, then as a surgeon, but his interests in astronomy overtook all things. In 1821 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and in 1822 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being Edward Troughton. He won the Copley Medal in 1826 and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in that same year. He was knighted by King William IV in 1831. Starting around 1826, James South made plans for a new, larger telescope, an equatorially mounted achromatic refractor (a telescope with a lens) in a new observatory. The next largest refractor, was at the Markree Observatory, which successfully completed a 13.3 inch refractor (also a Cauchoix of Paris lens) in the 1830s on a Thomas Grubb mount. The problem for James South's telescope was the equatorial mount. The Observatory mounted it on a Grubb equatorial, where it survives to the present day. (See also Great refractors)

James was the second owner of the Groombridge Transit Circle of 1806 (after Stephen Groombridge).

South and John Herschel jointly produced a catalogue of 380 double stars in 1824, reobserving many of the double stars that had been discovered by William Herschel. South then continued and observed another 458 double stars over the following year.

Craters on Mars and the Moon are named in his honour.