Francis Baily (April 28th 1774 - August 30th 1844), is a astronomer English.

Baily is born with Newbury. In 1796 and 1797 it travels in the portions still not explored North America, its newspaper of voyage is published by Auguste De Morgan in 1856. It enters then to the Bourse of London and publishes several books in the field of the life insurance, Tables for the Purchasing and Renewing off Leases (1802), The Doctrine off Interest and Annuities (1808), and The Doctrine off Life-Annuities and Assurances (1810). It piles up a fortune and withdraws businesses in 1825 to devote itself to the Astronomie.

It takes an active share in the creation of the Royal Astronomical Society (CLOSE-CROPPED). It off receives the gold medal of the SHORT-NAP CLOTH in 1827 for its preparation of the Catalog 2881 stars of the SHORT-NAP CLOTH then again in 1843 for its repetition of the experiment of Henry Cavendish to determine the density of the Ground.

The reform of the Nautical Almanac in 1829 is based on criticisms of Baily. It recommends in 1837 to the British Association the reduction of the star catalogs of Jerome Lalande and Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille container 57  000 star S, it carries out to him even most of work. It off directs compilation for British Association of the Catalog 8377 stars published in 1845. It revises the catalogs of stars of Tobias Mayer, Ptolémée, Ulugh Beg, Tycho Brahé, Edmond Halley and Johannes Hevelius.

Its observations of the grains of Baily during a annular eclipse of the Sun the May 15th 1836 in the Roxburghshire is the beginning of a series of modern forwardings of observations of the eclipses. Its description of this phenomenon which depends on the irregularities of the lunar mountains draws the attention to the total eclipse of the July 8th 1842 that Baily observes with Pavia.

Baily supplements and discusses the experiments of Henry Foster carried out with a pendulum and from of deduced a ellipsoidality from the Ground from 1/289,48. It corrects the length of the pendulum-second and in 1843 it is charged to rebuild the standards lengths. Its repetition of the experiments of Henry Cavendish gives him a value for the density of the Ground of 5,66.

Its report of the life of John Flamsteed is of great importance for the Histoire of sciences of the 17th century. He dies in London the August 30th 1844 and is buried in the family vault of the church of the parish of Thatcham. A crater on the the Moon bears its name.

References

• articles of Francis Baily

External bonds

• Gold medal of Royal Astronomical Society, 1827
• gold medal of the SHORT-NAP CLOTH, 1843
• MNRAS ''' 6 ''' (1844) 89, obituary, John Herschel