Roger Long

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roger Long (1680 - 1770) was an English astronomer, and Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge between 1733 and 1770.

One of the great characters of eighteenth-century Cambridge, he built a "water-work" in his garden and paddled round it on a water-cycle. He also constructed a "zodiack", now considered to be the first planetarium, a hollow sphere that could hold thirty people showing the movements of the planets and constellations which remained in the grounds of Pembroke until 1871. He was a Doctor of Divinity and first holder of the Lowndean Professorship of Astronomy.