David Gill

Sir David Gill (June 12 1843 – January 24 1914) was a Scottish astronomer who spent much of his career in South Africa.

He used the parallax of Mars to determine the distance to the Sun, and also measured distances to the stars. He perfected the use of the heliometer . He was Her Majesty's Astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope from 1879 to 1906. He was a pioneer in the use of astrophotography, and one of the early proponents of the Carte du Ciel project.

He won the Bruce Medal in 1900. He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society twice, in 1882 and 1908.

Craters on Mars and on the Moon are named after him.

External links

• Bruce Medal page
• Awarding of Bruce Medal: PASP 12 (1900) 49
• Awarding of RAS gold medal, 1882: MNRAS 42 (1882) 216
• Awarding of RAS gold medal, 1908: MNRAS 68 (1908) 317

Obituaries

• ApJ 40 (1914) 161
• MNRAS 75 (1915) 236
• Obs 37 (1914) 115
• PASP 26 (1914) 67