Edward Pigott

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Edward Pigott (1753 – June 27, 1825) was an English astronomer, and the son of astronomer Nathaniel Pigott (1725-1804) and Anna Mathurine de Bériot (1727-1792). Probably born in Whitton, Middlesex, his elder brother, Charles Gregory, died in young age. He also had a younger sister, Mathurina (b. 1761). He lived in England, France and Wales.

Working as an astronomer with his father, he observed Jupiter's satellites and, from a station near Caen (Normandy, France), the transit of Venus of June 3, 1769. On March 23, 1779, from Frampton House, Glamorganshire, he discovered a nebula in Coma Berenices, which later became known as M64. This discovery occurred just 12 days before that by Bode and roughly a year before Messier's independent rediscovery of the same object. Perhaps because of its late publication, Pigott's original discovery fell more or less forgotten and his "nebula" was apparently never identified, until Bryn Jones of Wales recovered it in April, 2002. Edward Pigott discovered the Great comet of 1783 from York on November 19, 1783. This comet was independently found by Pierre Méchain on November 26 and observed by several astronomers including Charles Messier.

On September 10, 1784 Edward Pigott detected the variability of Eta Aquilae, then known as "Eta Antinoi", and the first known representative of a class of variable stars later called Delta Cephei stars or, perhaps somewhat misleadingly, "Cepheids". This discovery occurred at a time when roughly a dozen variables were known, of which all but 6 were novae or supernovae.

In the following years, Pigott worked with his neighbour and friend, John Goodricke. Goodricke is reported to have died in 1786 from pneumonia he caught when observing Delta Cephei. Pigott died in Bath, England on June 27, 1825.

Edward Pigott, together with his father, Nathaniel Pigott, was honoured by having an asteroid named after him: . Asteroid (10220) Pigott, discovered October 20, 1997 by R.A. Tucker of the Goodricke-Pigott Observatory, and provisionally designated 1997 UG7.

[edit] References

Edward Pigott, 1981. [VII.] Account of a Nebula in Coma Berenices. By Edward Pigott, Esq. In a Letter to Nevil Maskelyne, D.D.F.R.S. and Astronomer Royal (dated September 3, 1779). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LXXI (1781), p. 82-83. Available online.
Agnes M. Clerk, 1896. Article on Edward Pigott in: Sir Sidney Lee (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. XLV, p. 284. Smith, Elder and Co., London 1896.
Zdenek Kopal. Article on Edward Pigott and his father, Nathaniel Pigott, in: C. Gillispie (ed.). The Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
Anita McConnell and Alison Brech, 1999. Nathaniel and Edward Pigott, Itinerant Astronomers. Notes and Records of the Royal Society London, Vol. 53, No. 3, p. 305-318.