Abstract
In the course of a thirty year ‘career’ as an amateur astronomer John Grigg constructed two different observatories in Thames, and installed a small Wray refractor and a transit telescope in these. He used the refractor mainly to observe known comets and discover new ones, and to pioneer astrophotography in New Zealand. He also maintained a local time-service, and was an avid populariser of astronomer. Early in the twentieth century he was New Zealand’s leading amateur astronomer.
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- 1.
Nowhere does Grigg indicate who loaned him this telescope.
- 2.
Pohutakawa was a native tree of New Zealand with excellent timber that was widely used in the building industry during the nineteenth century.
- 3.
Mackrell (1985: 75) errs in suggesting that this was the first observatory erected by an amateur astronomer in New Zealand. Those who maintained private observatories prior to 1885 included Thomas Cheeseman of Auckland, Stephen Carkeek of Featherstone (Orchiston 2001c and Chap. 8 in this book), Henry Jackson of Lower Hutt (Hector 1935), Thomas King of Wellington (Seymour 1995), James Townsend of Christchurch, and Arthur Beverly and Henry Skey of Dunedin.
- 4.
This warehouse formed part of Grigg’s business premises in Pollen Street, Thames.
- 5.
McIntosh (1958: 21) incorrectly states that Grigg’s second Thames Observatory was constructed in “About 1884 …”.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the following for their assistance: Mr and Mrs Paul Angus (Wellington, NZ), the late Graham Blow (Wellington, NZ), the late Peter Hingley (former RAS Librarian, London), the late Alistair Isdale (Thames, NZ), Dr Nick Lomb (ex-Sydney Observatory), John Seymour (Palmerston North, NZ), Ormond Warren (Auckland, NZ) and staff at the Mitchell Library (Sydney). I also wish to thank John Drummond (Patutahi, NZ) for reading and commenting on the first draft of this chapter, and the Ward (Wanganui) Observatory (through John Seymour) for kindly supplying Figs. 10.3 and 10.4.
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Orchiston, W. (2016). The Thames Observatories of John Grigg. In: Exploring the History of New Zealand Astronomy. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 422. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22566-1_10
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