Horace Parnell Tuttle

Horace Parnell Tuttle (March 17, 1837 – August 16, 1923) was an American astronomer, an American Civil War veteran and brother of astronomer Charles Wesley Tuttle (November 1, 1829 – July 17, 1881).

H. P. Tuttle was born at Newfield, Maine. His parents were Moses Tuttle and Mary Merrow. In 1845 Mary Merrow died, and four years later Moses Tuttle remarried and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Charles Wesley Tuttle was an amateur astronomer who constructed his own telescope, and on a visit to the Harvard Observatory so impressed William Cranch Bond that by 1850 he was hired as an assistant observer. At Harvard Charles Wesley first proposed the existence of the interior "dusky ring" of Saturn. In 1853 he discovered a comet (C/1853 E1 Secchi), with independent discovery credited to Father Secchi, Rome. The following year Charles Wesley was forced to give up his astronomical career because of failing eyesight. He entered Harvard Law School and became U. S. Commissioner. Charles wrote many articles for the New England Historic Genealogy Society.

Charles was soon replaced at Harvard by his younger brother Horace, who joined Truman Henry Safford, Sidney Coolidge, and Asaph Hall as observatory assistants. Horace became attached to a four-inch Merz comet seeker, which he placed on the balconies of the 15-inch refractor, spending many nights in search of new comets.

Horace Tuttle discovered or co-discovered numerous comets, including 55P/Tempel-Tuttle (parent body of the Leonid meteor shower, discovered by Tuttle January 6, 1866), and 109P/Swift-Tuttle (parent body of the Perseid meteor shower, disc. July 19, 1862), the "Great Comet of 1860", C/1860 III (disc. June 22, 1860), C/1859 G1 Tempel (disc April 24, 1859). Other periodic comets that bear his name are 8P/Tuttle (parent comet of the Ursid meteor shower; disc. January 5, 1858 "rather faint") and 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak (disc. May 3, 1858 in Leo Minor "very faint"), C/1861 Y1 Tuttle, (disc. December 19, 1862), C/1859 G1 Tempel (disc. April 28, 1859). The asteroid 5036 Tuttle was named in his honor. In 1859 he was awarded the Lalande Prize of the French Academy of Sciences for the discovery of comets 1858I, 1858III, and 1858VII.

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