Dates

• Existence: 1843 - 1912

Biography

John Franklin-Adams, distinguished British amateur astronomer, was born in Peckham in 1843. A Lloyd’s underwriter by profession, he developed his interest in astronomy in later life and was largely self-taught.

Franklin-Adams conceived of the idea of a photographic star chart in the late 1890s when he set up an observatory at his house in Machrihanish in Argyllshire. Between 1902 and 1904 he undertook work in South Africa photographing the whole of the Southern sky. He returned to England in 1904 and attached an observatory to his new home near Godalming in Surrey; by 1909 he had photographed the whole of the Northern sky. Franklin-Adams became dissatisfied with the quality of his South Africa plates and in 1909, was about to return to re-photograph the southern sky when he became ill. Instead, his assistant R.J. Mitchell along with H.E. Wood did, or re-did, the southern work, at the Union (Transvaal) Observatory.

The Franklin-Adams star charts are the first photographic atlas of the sky. They were published posthumously in 1913-1914 by the Royal Astronomical Society in 206 sheets.

Franklin-Adams also took part in two eclipse expeditions: the first to Santa Pola, Spain, for the Total Solar Eclipse on 28th May 1900 when he accompanied an observing party from the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh; the second to Algiers to observe the eclipse of 30th August 1905.

Franklin-Adams was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1897. He died in 1912 age 69.

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