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Re: (meteorobs) "Mr. Denning"



Thanks Mark and Jim, that was most interesting.  Here are some notes I
took from a couple of books.

Here are a couple of notes about Denning

From "Comets, Meteorites and Men" by Peter Lancaster Brown, 1973
page 130
"William F. Denning (1848-1931) became the greatest British amateur
observer of his day.  His interests ranged from telescopic observations of
Jupiter and comets to naked-eye observations of meteors.  He found his
first comet as co-discovered with W.R. Brooks in 1881 and went on to find
four more before deciding to concentrate on a long-term, naked-eye meteor
observing programme.  During the 1880s and 1890s he was a prolific
contributor to the observational journals of the day, and he regularly
published records of the time he had expended on various projects.  Each
comet discovery he said had averaged 119 hours of work.  His greatest
contributions are, however, his catalogues of minor meteor radiants, and
he continued observing meteors right up to the time of his death.  Due to
his great familiarity with the naked-eye stars, he was first to discover
Nova Cygni in 1920 when it suddenly exploded into view.  An accountant by
training, he rejected his professional career and also remained a
life-long bachelor in order to devote the maximum possible time to his
observational work; during his latter years he lived in extreme poverty
and became a neglected, almost forgotten figure in British astronomy"

It is my understanding that upon his death, his relatives destroyed most
of his records.  Lancaster Brown's book is a great read.

From "Meteor Science and Engineering" by D.W.R McKinley, 1961
page 8
"In the latter half of the century hundreds of lesser showers were
recorded.  Denning (1899) lists over 4,000 radiants in his 'Catalogue'.
While still serving as a qualitative guide to the general distribution of
meteor showers, Denning's 'Catalogue' is now mainly of historical
interest, because  many of his radiant positions depended on too few data
and have hence been discarded as spurious, while the value of much of the
remainder of his material has been made obsolete by modern techniques."

Cheers, Rob

Robert H. McNaught
rmn@aaocbn.aaodot gov.au

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