Charles Piazzi Smyth
| Charles Piazzi Smyth | |
|---|---|
Charles Piazzi Smyth
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| Born |
3 January 1819 Naples, Italy |
| Died | 21 February 1900 (aged 81) |
| Fields | Astronomy |
| Institutions | Astronomer Royal for Scotland |
Charles Piazzi Smyth FRSE FRS FRAS FRSSA (3 January 1819 – 21 February 1900) was an English astronomer who was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1846 to 1888; he is known for many innovations in astronomy and his pyramidological and metrological studies of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Charles Piazzi Smyth (pronounced /ˈsmaɪθ/) was born in Naples, Italy, to Captain (later Admiral) William Henry Smyth and his wife Annarella. He was called Piazzi after his godfather, the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, whose acquaintance his father had made at Palermo when serving in the Mediterranean. His father subsequently settled at Bedford and equipped there an observatory, at which Piazzi Smyth received his first lessons in astronomy. He was educated at Bedford School until the age of sixteen when he became an assistant to Sir Thomas Maclear at the Cape of Good Hope, where he observed Halley's comet and the Great Comet of 1843, and took an active part in the verification and extension of Nicolas Louis de Lacaille's arc of the meridian.
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