Thomas Street (also spelled Streete) (1621–1689) was an English astronomer, known for his writings on celestial motions. He has sometimes been confused with Thomas Street the judge, who lived from 1626 to 1696. The crater

Street A street is a public thoroughfare in a city, town or village, typically lined with Building, buildings on one or both sides. Streets often include pavements (sidewalks), pedestrian crossings, and sometimes amenities like Street light, streetligh ...

on the Moon is named after him.

Life

According to '' Brief Lives'' by Street's contemporary

John Aubrey John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He was a pioneer archaeologist, who recorded (often for the first time) numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England ...

, Street was born at Castle Lyons in Ireland on 5 March 1621, and died "in Chanon-row (vulgarly Channel-rowe) at

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

, 17 August 1689, and is buried in the church yard of the new chapell there".

Astronomy

On 3 May 1661 Streete observed a

transit of Mercury file:Mercury transit symbol.svg, frameless, upright=0.5 A transit of Mercury across the Sun takes place when the planet Mercury (planet), Mercury passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet. During a Astronomical transit, transit, Merc ...

from Long Acre in London with

Nicholas Mercator Nicholas (Nikolaus) Mercator (c. 1620, Holstein – 1687, Versailles), also known by his German name Kauffmann, was a 17th-century mathematician. He was born in Eutin, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany and educated at Rostock and Leyden after which ...

and

Christiaan Huygens Christiaan Huygens, Halen, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , ; ; also spelled Huyghens; ; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor who is regarded as a key figure in the Scientific Revolution ...

. Streete subsequently disputed Hevelius's observation of this event. The same year also saw Streete publishing ''Astronomia Carolina, a new theorie of Coelestial Motions''. An ''Appendix to Astronomia Carolina'' (including tables) followed in 1664. ''Astronomia Carolina'' was widely read, and used by students who later became very notable in their own right, e.g.

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

and

John Flamsteed John Flamsteed (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719) was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, ''Catalogus Britannicus'', and a star atlas called '' Atlas ...

. It was from ''Astronomia Carolina'' that Flamsteed learned how to calculate eclipses and planetary positions. Street's tables in ''Astronomia Carolina'' had a reputation for accuracy: for example, Flamsteed once referred to them as "the exactest tables in being, the Caroline", and ''Astronomia Carolina'' itself appeared in second and third editions as late as 1710 and 1716. 1674 saw the appearance of Street's ''Description and Use of the Planetary Systeme together with Easie Tables'', as well as, in the same year, ''Tables of Projection'' for artillery, accompanying a work on gunnery by Robert Anderson. A follower of

Johannes Kepler Johannes Kepler (27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best know ...

, Street argued, like Kepler, that Earth's velocity in its annual revolution around the sun is not uniform. He argued that the velocity increases as it approaches the Sun, and decreases as it moves away.

Other achievements

Street invented an improved back-staff, a modification of an earlier instrument by

Robert Hooke Robert Hooke (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath who was active as a physicist ("natural philosopher"), astronomer, geologist, meteorologist, and architect. He is credited as one of the first scientists to investigate living ...

, adding to the device two planes and a small mirror.

Personality

One of Street's pamphlets described how he engaged in a vigorous polemic with Vincent Wing, his astronomical competitor, who had published a criticism of Street's ''Astronomia Carolina''.

Edmond Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Hal ...

(1656–1742), Street's much younger contemporary, wrote of Street as his 'good friend' (according to Halley's biographer), and said that they had observed a lunar eclipse together.Alan Cook, "Edmond Halley", Oxford, 1998, p. 66. Halley wrote an

appendix Appendix (: appendices or appendixes) may refer to: __NOTOC__ In documents * Addendum, an addition made to a document by its author after its initial printing or publication * Bibliography, a systematic list of books and other works * Index (publis ...

to the 1710 edition of Street's ''Astronomia Carolina'', and Cajori (op. cit.) said that Halley actually 'brought out' that 1710 edition.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Street, Thomas 17th-century English astronomers 17th-century Irish astronomers 1621 births 1689 deaths English scientific instrument makers People from Castlelyons Scientists from County Cork