Lewis Boss (26 October 1846 – 5 October 1912) was an American

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either o ...

. He served as the director of the

Dudley Observatory Dudley Observatory is an astronomical observatory originally located in Albany, New York, and now in Loudonville, New York. It is no longer operating as a scientific observatory, but remains the oldest non-academic institution of astronomical re ...

Schenectady Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Yo ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Early life

Boss was born in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

to Samuel P. and Lucinda (née Joslin) Boss, and attended secondary school at the

Lapham Institute The Smithville Seminary was a Freewill Baptist institution established in 1839 on what is now Institute Lane in Smithville-North Scituate, Rhode Island. Renamed the Lapham Institute in 1863, it closed in 1876. The site was then used as the campus ...

in North Scituate and the

New Hampton Institution New Hampton School is an independent college preparatory high school in New Hampton, New Hampshire, United States. It has 305 students from over 30 states and 22 countries. The average class size is eleven, and the student-faculty ratio is five t ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

. In 1870, he graduated from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

, then went to work as a

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

for the U.S. Government.

Career

He served as an assistant astronomer for a government expedition to survey the

U.S The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territor ...

- Canada–United States border. In 1876 he became the directory of the

in Schenectady, New York. Boss is noted for his work in cataloguing the locations and

proper motion Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...

s of stars. He also led an expedition to

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

in 1882 to observe the

transit Transit may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Transit'' (1979 film), a 1979 Israeli film * ''Transit'' (2005 film), a film produced by MTV and Staying-Alive about four people in countries in the world * ''Transit'' (2006 film), a 2006 ...

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

, and catalogued information concerning

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma, and sometimes also a Comet ta ...

ary

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such a ...

s. His most significant discovery was the calculation of the convergent point of the Hyades

star cluster Star clusters are large groups of stars. Two main types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of ten thousand to millions of old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters are more loosely clus ...

. He was awarded the

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awa ...

in 1905. He became editor of the ''

Astronomical Journal ''The Astronomical Journal'' (often abbreviated ''AJ'' in scientific papers and references) is a peer-reviewed monthly scientific journal owned by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and currently published by IOP Publishing. It is one of the ...

'' in 1909, and the following year published ''Preliminary General Catalogue of 6188 Stars for the Epoch 1900'', a compilation of the proper motions of stars. Following his death, responsibility for the ''Astronomical Journal'' passed to his son,

Benjamin Boss Benjamin Boss (January 9, 1880 – October 17, 1970) was an American astronomer. He served as the director of both the Dudley Observatory in Schenectady, New York and the Department of Meridian Astrometry of the Carnegie Institution of Washi ...

. Benjamin continued to edit the journal until 1941 and also expanded his father's star catalogue, publishing the ''

Boss General Catalogue ''Boss General Catalogue'' (''GC'', sometimes General Catalogue) is an astronomical catalogue containing 33,342 star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest sta ...

'' in 1936.

Death and legacy

Boss died on October 5. 1912 in

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York Ci ...

. The

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...

crater

Boss Boss may refer to: Occupations * Supervisor, often referred to as boss * Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier * Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization * Fire boss, a p ...

is named in his honor.

Family life

Boss married Helen M. Hutchinson on December 30, 1871. Their son

was also a noted astronomer.

References

Sources

* ''Much of this article was based on th
Dudley Observatory history
of Lewis Boss.''

External links

* ''Preliminary General Catalogue of 6188 Stars for the Epoch 1900''
National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir

1846 births 1912 deaths Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences American astronomers Scientists from Schenectady, New York Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society People from Providence, Rhode Island Dartmouth College alumni People from Albany, New York Recipients of the Lalande Prize The Astronomical Journal editors {{US-astronomer-stub