Gould, Benjamin Apthorp

Gould, Benjamin Apthorp (1824–96) astronomer; born in Boston, Mass. Son of the principal of the Boston Latin School, he graduated from Harvard and studied in Germany. He founded the Astronomical Journal (1849) and worked with the U.S. Coast Survey (1852–67). His major interest was in the stars of the southern hemisphere and to this end he helped found the National Observatory in Cordoba, Argentina (1865). Serving as its director (1870–85), he headed a staff that catalogued thousands of stars. On returning to the U.S.A., he spent his final years measuring the star clusters he had photographed there. His Uranometry of the Southern Heavens complemented star studies of the northern hemisphere.