Bertrand Meigh Peek

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bertrand Meigh Peek M.A. F.R.A.S. (1891–1965) was a British astronomer.

He used an observatory at Solihull, Birmingham, England, from 1923 until 1947 to make a series of observations (with notes published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.) The observatory was dismantled in 1947.^[1] Among the targets of his observations was the planet Jupiter, and he served as director of the Jupiter Section of the British Astronomical Association (BAA). From 1930 until 1931 he also directed the Mars Section of the BAA. He would serve as the president of the BAA from 1938 until 1940.

In 1958 he published The Planet Jupiter, a treatise on the giant planet based on visual observations of the planet by the Jupiter Section of the BAA. (A revised version of this book was published in 1981.)

Based on noted provided by his son Brian to the BAA,^[2] Bertrand Peek was:

Three time winner of the Cambridge mathematics prize.
A Cambridge tennis champion.
Team member of the Anglo-Soviet chess match.
Served as a Major in the Hampshire Regiment during World War I.

He was also a yatchman, composed musical symphony, and held an expertise in early radio technology.

Peek crater on the Moon is named after him.

[edit] Notes

^ Peek, B. M., 1948, "Report of his observatory (Solihull)", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 108, p. 79.)
^ Directors of the Mars Section, BAA