Sir David Gill

Sir David Gill , 1843-1914, Scottish astronomer, educated at the Univ. of Aberdeen. He made observations of the transits of Venus and Mars and investigated the solar parallax. As astronomer royal (1879-1907) at the Cape of Good Hope, he carried out the geodetic survey of Natal and Cape Colony and organized the geodetic survey of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He was a leader in the use of photography in the preparation of star catalogs. His photographic survey of almost half a million stars in the Southern Hemisphere (with J. C. Kapteyn) is known as The Cape Photographic Durchmusterung for the Equinox 1875 (1896-1900). This work extended Argelander's Bonn Durchmusterung to the South Pole. Gill was knighted in 1900. His writings include his History and Description of the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope (1913).

Gill, David (1843–1914)Scottishastronomer. While Astronomer at the Cape (in modern South Africa), he derived a solar parallax of 8″.8 from observations of three asteroids, a value that remained the standard until 1941. Photographs taken by Gill of the GreatSeptember Comet of 1882 showed so many stars that he conceived the idea of producing a star catalogue based on photography. The result was the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung, compiled by J. C.Kapteyn from Gill's photographic plates. A further consequence was the mammoth Carte du Ciel photographic project.