Roger Long (1680 – 16 December 1770) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

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 ...

, and Master of Pembroke College,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

between 1733 and 1770. Roger Long was the son of Thomas Long of

Croxton, Norfolk Croxton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk, within the district of Breckland. Croxton is located 2.2 miles north of Thetford and 26 miles south-east of Norwich. History Croxton's name is of mixed Anglo-Saxon and Viki ...

. He was educated at

Norwich School Norwich School (formally King Edward VI Grammar School, Norwich) is a selective English independent day school in the close of Norwich Cathedral, Norwich. Among the oldest schools in the United Kingdom, it has a traceable history to 1096 as a ...

and later admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1696/7.Liba Taub
‘Long, Roger (1680–1770)’
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 2 Oct 2013 Graduating BA in 1700/1, he became a fellow of Pembroke. He was ordained in 1716, and became Rector of

Orton Waterville Orton is a mostly residential area of the city of Peterborough, in the Peterborough district, in the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England. For electoral purposes it comprises Orton Longueville, Orton Waterville and Orton with Hampton w ...

. He became a Doctor of Divinity in 1728, and Master of Pembroke in 1733. From 1750 until 1770 he was the first holder of the Lowndean Professorship of Astronomy. One of the great characters of eighteenth-century

, he built a "water-work" in his garden and paddled round it on a water-cycle. He also constructed a "zodiack", now considered to be the first

planetarium A planetarium ( planetariums or ''planetaria'') is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetarium ...

, a hollow sphere that could hold thirty people showing the movements of the planets and constellations which remained in the grounds of Pembroke until 1871.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Long, Roger 1680 births 1770 deaths People from Breckland District 18th-century British astronomers People educated at Norwich School Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge Masters of Pembroke College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Lowndean Professors of Astronomy and Geometry Vice-Chancellors of the University of Cambridge