Abstract
DR. J. JACKSON, chief assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, has been appointed H.M. Astronomer at the Cape Observatory in succession to Dr. H. Spencer Jones. Dr. Jackson hails from the University of Glasgow, and went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a scholar from 1909 until 1914, and made researches in dynamical astronomy, particularly the perturbations of Jupiter's eighth satellite. He became chief assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in October, 1914, where he took a considerable part in the observing activity of the Observatory. He served with the survey section of the Royal Engineers from December, 1917, to the end of the War. Attention may be directed to Dr. Jackson's work on double star orbits and the determination of hypothetical parallaxes with Mr. Fumer; to the very interesting results he obtained from his study of the Shortt clocks; and to his determination of the constant of nutation from observations with the Cookson telescope. During the last seven years, he has co-operated with Dr. Knox Shaw and Mr. Robinson in the reduction of Hornsby's observations at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford. Quite recently he has published corrections to the orbit of Mercury for the epoch 1774–98. These results are of special importance as they confirm the motion of the perihelion of the planet, discovered by Leverrier and explained by Einstein. With Prof. F. J. M. Stratton he edited vol. 5 of the collected works of Sir George Darwin. From 1920 until 1927 he was editor of the Observatory magazine, and was secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1923 until 1929.
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Dr. J. Jackson. Nature 130, 990 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130990a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130990a0