Pyramid man: Charles Piazzi Smyth

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. A painting of Charles Piazzi Smyth by John Faed (1819-1902). Image: public domain via Wikimedia Commons When he was only