Horace Parnell Tuttle
Encyclopedia
Horace Parnell Tuttle was an American astronomer
, a Civil War veteran and brother of astronomer Charles Wesley Tuttle (Nov. 1,1829 - July 17, 1881).
H. P. Tuttle was born at Newfield, Maine. His parents were Moses Tuttle and Mary Merrow. In 1845 Mary Merrow died, and four years later Moses Tuttle remarried and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Charles Wesley Tuttle was an amateur astronomer who constructed his own telescope, and on a visit to the Harvard Observatory so impressed William Cranch Bond
that by 1850 he was hired as an assistant observer. At Harvard Charles Wesley first proposed the existence of the interior "dusky ring" of Saturn. In 1853 he discovered a comet (C/1853 E1 Secchi), with independent discovery credited to Father
Secchi, Rome Italy. The following year Charles Wesley was forced to give up his astronomical career because of failing eyesight. He entered Harvard Law School and became U. S. Commissioner. Charles wrote many articles for the New England Historic Genealogy Society
Charles was soon replaced at Harvard by his younger brother Horace, who joined Truman Henry Safford, Sidney Coolidge, and Asaph Hall as observatory assistants. Horace became attached to a four-inch Merz comet seeker, which he placed on the balconies of the 15-inch refractor, spending many nights in search of new comets.
He discovered or co-discovered numerous comet
s, including 55P/Tempel-Tuttle
(parent body of the Leonid
meteor shower
, discovered by Tuttle January 6, 1866), and 109P/Swift-Tuttle (parent body of the Perseid
meteor shower, disc. July 19, 1862), the "Great Comet of 1860", C/1860 III (disc. June 22, 1860), C/1859 G1 Tempel (disc April 24, 1859). Other periodic comets that bear his name are 8P/Tuttle
(parent comet of the Ursid meteor shower; disc. January 5, 1858 "rather faint") and 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak
(disc. May 3, 1858 in Leo Minor "very faint"), C/1861 Y1 Tuttle, (disc. December 19, 1862), C/1859 G1 Tempel (disc. April 28, 1859) . The asteroid
5036 Tuttle
was named in his honor. In 1859 he was awarded the Lalande Prize
of the French Academy of Sciences
for the discovery of comets 1858I, 1858III, and 1858VII.
Tuttle is credited with the "discovery" of galaxies NGC 2655 in Camelopardalis, and NGC 6643 in Draco.
Tuttle dabbled in applications of the new Morse Code, and invented a method of signaling long distances by "light flashes." He is credited with inventing a new method for the insertion of rifled steel cores into brass or iron cannon.
His observing log books from this period are preserved at the library of the U.S. Naval Observatory.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, Horace Tuttle enlisted in the 44th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and served at New Bern, North Carolina. It would be through the intervention of former Harvard president Edward Everett
that Tuttle was given a commission in the U. S. Navy and as paymaster. He served on a number of vessels, including the monitor USS Catskill
, where he participated in the blockade of Charleston Harbor and the capture of the blockade runner "Deer".
Tuttle was appointed Acting Assistant Paymaster, February 17, 1863, Assistant Paymaster, July 2, 1864, and Paymaster, May 4, 1866.
He continued to make astronomical observations during the war, reporting on the 1864 appearance of Comet Tempel 1864 II from the deck of the Catskill. After the war Tuttle was sent to South America, Europe, and the Pacific, making scientific observations on Naval survey vessels.
The war era had taken Tuttle out of cometseeking for three and a half years. His discovery of comet 1866 I at the Naval Observatory on the fifth January, 1866 must have brought him back to happier times. This was Comet Tempel-Tuttle, first seen by the French astronomer more than two weeks earlier. The Washington Star newspaper reported the event on page two:
This was only the second comet ever discovered at the Naval Observatory. The first was James Ferguson's independent discovery of Comet Tempel 1859, which was also an independent discovery of H. P. Tuttle. In October, 1866 he was assigned to the Onward, South Atlantic Station. During the next four years he served on the monitors Guard and Terror.
On October 23, 1871 Tuttle independently recovered periodic comet 8/P1871 T1 Tuttle at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. In 1871 Tuttle served under Commodore George Dewey
as astronomer on the survey of the coast of lower California. In 1872 he was assigned to the oceanograhic survey ship Lackawanna" at Hong Kong.
On January 26, 1875, Tuttle and E. S. Holden recovered periodic comet 2P/Encke from the Naval Observatory. Tuttle was in Washington, DC attending a Naval court martial, his own in fact. He was dismissed from the Navy March 3, 1875.
Tuttle's brother Francis served in the Navy as Mate and Acting Ensign from 1863 to 1870. As Captain of the US Revenue Cutter "Bear", Francis Tuttle was ordered to the rescue of 14 ships of whalers trapped in ice off Point Barrow, Alaska, in 1897.
In 1875 Tuttle was appointed to the Interior Department's geographic and geological survey of the Black Hills of Dakota to survey the state borders and measure heights of geological features. He spent the next five years on border surveys of Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, for the General Land Office.
In 1887 Tuttle had a 6.5 inch broken-back reflecting comet seeker made for him by John Brashear. It was installed "on the tin roof of the Naval Observatory." . A similar refractor cometseeker by Brashear is in the Naval Observatory collection. Here he made his last comet discovery, a recovery of Comet 1888V Barnard.
Tuttle lived in the Washington, D.C. area from about 1884 until his death from "pulmonary edema" in 1923. In his final years he was feeble and blind from a fall in November, 1921. His gravesite is unmarked and its location in Oakwood Cemetery, Falls Church, is unknown.
Minor planet 5036 Tuttle (aka 1991 US2, 1965 DC, 1971 FY, 1977 KA2, 1982 KA1, 1985 UB2, 1988 KK1 or 1990 ST12), 2.73au from Earth on 19SEP2001. It was discovered by Ueda and Kaneda October, 1991. It is currently (11/2009) distant 3.1 A.U., visual magnitude of 16.8 It has a rotation period of 3.8 hours and a period of 5.57 years.
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
, a Civil War veteran and brother of astronomer Charles Wesley Tuttle (Nov. 1,1829 - July 17, 1881).
H. P. Tuttle was born at Newfield, Maine. His parents were Moses Tuttle and Mary Merrow. In 1845 Mary Merrow died, and four years later Moses Tuttle remarried and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Charles Wesley Tuttle was an amateur astronomer who constructed his own telescope, and on a visit to the Harvard Observatory so impressed William Cranch Bond
William Cranch Bond
William Cranch Bond was an American astronomer, and the first director of Harvard College Observatory.- Upbringing :William Cranch Bond was born in Falmouth, Maine on September 9, 1789...
that by 1850 he was hired as an assistant observer. At Harvard Charles Wesley first proposed the existence of the interior "dusky ring" of Saturn. In 1853 he discovered a comet (C/1853 E1 Secchi), with independent discovery credited to Father
Secchi, Rome Italy. The following year Charles Wesley was forced to give up his astronomical career because of failing eyesight. He entered Harvard Law School and became U. S. Commissioner. Charles wrote many articles for the New England Historic Genealogy Society
Charles was soon replaced at Harvard by his younger brother Horace, who joined Truman Henry Safford, Sidney Coolidge, and Asaph Hall as observatory assistants. Horace became attached to a four-inch Merz comet seeker, which he placed on the balconies of the 15-inch refractor, spending many nights in search of new comets.
He discovered or co-discovered numerous comet
Comet
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...
s, including 55P/Tempel-Tuttle
55P/Tempel-Tuttle
55P/Tempel–Tuttle is a comet that was independently discovered by Ernst Tempel on December 19, 1865 and by Horace Parnell Tuttle on January 6, 1866.It is the parent body of the Leonid meteor shower...
(parent body of the Leonid
Leonids
The Leonids is a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to radiate from that point in the sky. They tend to peak in November.Earth moves through the meteoroid...
meteor shower
Meteor shower
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller...
, discovered by Tuttle January 6, 1866), and 109P/Swift-Tuttle (parent body of the Perseid
Perseids
The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are so-called because the point from which they appear to come, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus. The name derives in part from the word Perseides , a term found in Greek mythology...
meteor shower, disc. July 19, 1862), the "Great Comet of 1860", C/1860 III (disc. June 22, 1860), C/1859 G1 Tempel (disc April 24, 1859). Other periodic comets that bear his name are 8P/Tuttle
8P/Tuttle
8P/Tuttle is a periodic comet in our solar system. Perihelion was late January 2008, and as of February was visible telescopically to Southern Hemisphere observers in the constellation Eridanus. On December 30, 2007 it was in close conjunction with spiral galaxy M33...
(parent comet of the Ursid meteor shower; disc. January 5, 1858 "rather faint") and 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak
41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak
41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresák is a periodic comet in our solar system.Discovered by Horace Parnell Tuttle on May 3, 1858, and re-discovered independently by Michel Giacobini and Ľubor Kresák in 1907 and 1951 respectively, it is a member of the Jupiter family of comets.- 2006 Apparition :As of June 1,...
(disc. May 3, 1858 in Leo Minor "very faint"), C/1861 Y1 Tuttle, (disc. December 19, 1862), C/1859 G1 Tempel (disc. April 28, 1859) . The asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
5036 Tuttle
5036 Tuttle
5036 Tuttle is a main-belt asteroid discovered on October 31, 1991 by Seiji Ueda and Hiroshi Kaneda at Kushiro.- External links :*...
was named in his honor. In 1859 he was awarded the Lalande Prize
Lalande Prize
The Lalande Prize was an award for scientific advances in astronomy, given from 1802 through 1970 by the French Academy of Sciences.The prize was named for, and endowed by, astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 1801...
of the French Academy of Sciences
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
for the discovery of comets 1858I, 1858III, and 1858VII.
Tuttle is credited with the "discovery" of galaxies NGC 2655 in Camelopardalis, and NGC 6643 in Draco.
Tuttle dabbled in applications of the new Morse Code, and invented a method of signaling long distances by "light flashes." He is credited with inventing a new method for the insertion of rifled steel cores into brass or iron cannon.
His observing log books from this period are preserved at the library of the U.S. Naval Observatory.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, Horace Tuttle enlisted in the 44th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and served at New Bern, North Carolina. It would be through the intervention of former Harvard president Edward Everett
Edward Everett
Edward Everett was an American politician and educator from Massachusetts. Everett, a Whig, served as U.S. Representative, and U.S. Senator, the 15th Governor of Massachusetts, Minister to Great Britain, and United States Secretary of State...
that Tuttle was given a commission in the U. S. Navy and as paymaster. He served on a number of vessels, including the monitor USS Catskill
USS Catskill (1862)
USS Catskill was a monitor that served the United States Navy during the American Civil War in the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America...
, where he participated in the blockade of Charleston Harbor and the capture of the blockade runner "Deer".
Tuttle was appointed Acting Assistant Paymaster, February 17, 1863, Assistant Paymaster, July 2, 1864, and Paymaster, May 4, 1866.
He continued to make astronomical observations during the war, reporting on the 1864 appearance of Comet Tempel 1864 II from the deck of the Catskill. After the war Tuttle was sent to South America, Europe, and the Pacific, making scientific observations on Naval survey vessels.
The war era had taken Tuttle out of cometseeking for three and a half years. His discovery of comet 1866 I at the Naval Observatory on the fifth January, 1866 must have brought him back to happier times. This was Comet Tempel-Tuttle, first seen by the French astronomer more than two weeks earlier. The Washington Star newspaper reported the event on page two:
COMET DISCOVERED Admiral C. H. Davis, Superintendent of the U. S. Naval Observatory and Hydrographical Office, reports to Secretary Welles the discovery of a new comet by H. P. Tuttle, on the evening of January 5... The comet is round... with a slight condensation at the center.
This was only the second comet ever discovered at the Naval Observatory. The first was James Ferguson's independent discovery of Comet Tempel 1859, which was also an independent discovery of H. P. Tuttle. In October, 1866 he was assigned to the Onward, South Atlantic Station. During the next four years he served on the monitors Guard and Terror.
On October 23, 1871 Tuttle independently recovered periodic comet 8/P1871 T1 Tuttle at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. In 1871 Tuttle served under Commodore George Dewey
George Dewey
George Dewey was an admiral of the United States Navy. He is best known for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War...
as astronomer on the survey of the coast of lower California. In 1872 he was assigned to the oceanograhic survey ship Lackawanna" at Hong Kong.
On January 26, 1875, Tuttle and E. S. Holden recovered periodic comet 2P/Encke from the Naval Observatory. Tuttle was in Washington, DC attending a Naval court martial, his own in fact. He was dismissed from the Navy March 3, 1875.
Tuttle's brother Francis served in the Navy as Mate and Acting Ensign from 1863 to 1870. As Captain of the US Revenue Cutter "Bear", Francis Tuttle was ordered to the rescue of 14 ships of whalers trapped in ice off Point Barrow, Alaska, in 1897.
In 1875 Tuttle was appointed to the Interior Department's geographic and geological survey of the Black Hills of Dakota to survey the state borders and measure heights of geological features. He spent the next five years on border surveys of Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, for the General Land Office.
In 1887 Tuttle had a 6.5 inch broken-back reflecting comet seeker made for him by John Brashear. It was installed "on the tin roof of the Naval Observatory." . A similar refractor cometseeker by Brashear is in the Naval Observatory collection. Here he made his last comet discovery, a recovery of Comet 1888V Barnard.
Tuttle lived in the Washington, D.C. area from about 1884 until his death from "pulmonary edema" in 1923. In his final years he was feeble and blind from a fall in November, 1921. His gravesite is unmarked and its location in Oakwood Cemetery, Falls Church, is unknown.
| C/1857II Bruhns | April 1857 |
| C/1857V Klinkerfues Klinkerfues Klinkerfues may refer to:* Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Klinkerfues , German astronomer* 112328 Klinkerfues, a main belt asteroid named after the astronomer* Comet Klinkerfues... |
August 23. 1857 |
| C/1857VI Donati | November 11, 1857 |
| 8P/Tuttle 8P/Tuttle 8P/Tuttle is a periodic comet in our solar system. Perihelion was late January 2008, and as of February was visible telescopically to Southern Hemisphere observers in the constellation Eridanus. On December 30, 2007 it was in close conjunction with spiral galaxy M33... |
January 5, 1858 |
| 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresák is a periodic comet in our solar system.Discovered by Horace Parnell Tuttle on May 3, 1858, and re-discovered independently by Michel Giacobini and Ľubor Kresák in 1907 and 1951 respectively, it is a member of the Jupiter family of comets.- 2006 Apparition :As of June 1,... |
May 2, 1858 |
| C/1858VII | September 5, 1858 |
| C/1859 G1 Tempel | April 24, 1859 |
| C/1860 III | June 22, 1860 |
| C/1861 III | December 18, 1861 |
| 109P/Swift-Tuttle | July 19, 1862 |
| C/1861 Y1 Tuttle | December 19, 1862 |
| 55P/Tempel-Tuttle 55P/Tempel-Tuttle 55P/Tempel–Tuttle is a comet that was independently discovered by Ernst Tempel on December 19, 1865 and by Horace Parnell Tuttle on January 6, 1866.It is the parent body of the Leonid meteor shower... |
January 5, 1866 |
| 8/P1871 T1 Tuttle | October 23, 1871 |
| 2P/Encke | January 26, 1875 |
| C/1888V Barnard | November 1, 1888 |
| 66 Maja 66 Maja 66 Maja is a dark, quite large main-belt asteroid. It was discovered by Horace Tuttle on April 9, 1861, and named after Maia, one of the Pleiades in Greek mythology.-References:... |
April 9, 1861 |
| 73 Klytia 73 Klytia 73 Klytia is a main-belt asteroid. It was the second and last asteroid discovery by the prolific comet discoverer Horace Tuttle, on April 7, 1862. It is named after Clytia, who loved Apollo in Greek mythology.-References:... |
April 7, 1862 |
Minor planet 5036 Tuttle (aka 1991 US2, 1965 DC, 1971 FY, 1977 KA2, 1982 KA1, 1985 UB2, 1988 KK1 or 1990 ST12), 2.73au from Earth on 19SEP2001. It was discovered by Ueda and Kaneda October, 1991. It is currently (11/2009) distant 3.1 A.U., visual magnitude of 16.8 It has a rotation period of 3.8 hours and a period of 5.57 years.