In the village of Sharow near Ripon there lies a small pyramid – the grave, surprisingly, of an Astronomer Royal for Scotland. Charles Piazzi Smyth, FRS, FRSE, FRAS, FRSSA, was born on 3 January 1819 in Naples, where his father was a naval captain and later an admiral. Charles was given the name ‘Piazzi’ because his father had been a friend of Guiseppe Piazzi, who discovered the first dwarf planet, Ceres, in January 1801. Smyth’s father had an observatory from which they viewed Halley’s Comet and the Great Comet of 1843, which was visible in broad daylight.
When he was only 16, Charles was sent to South Africa as an assistant at the observatory there. He soon proved his worth, making many drawings and paintings in addition to his observations. At the age of 24, he successfully applied for the position of Astronomer Royal for Scotland, but became disillusioned with the smoky atmosphere, which impeded his view of the heavens. Following suggestions by Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), he obtained funds to set up an observatory in the clear air of Mount Teide in Tenerife, the first high-altitude project of its type, and the forerunner of many others. Smyth obtained support from Sir George Airy (1801-1892), the British Astronomer Royal, and Sir William Herschel (1738-1822), the German-born British astronomer and composer. The necessary equipment was transported to Tenerife on the Titania, which was owned by engineer Robert Stephenson (1803-1859), the son of George Stephenson, the ‘father of railways’.
In 1852, he inaugurated the one o’clock dropping of the ball on Nelson’s Monument in Edinburgh, to which in 1861 he added the daily firing of the one o’clock cannon. This enabled mariners on the nearby Firth of Forth to set their chronometers without having to take them to the observatory. His work on the solar spectrum was recognised by the award in 1880 of the Makdougall Brisbane Prize (for the promotion of scientific research). He made observations of double stars and measurements of the infrared radiation of the moon.
Adapting ceremonies and festivals