William Edward Wilson 1851-1908

Highlights of Wilson's life:

1851 Born at Greenisland, Co. Antrim on 19 July.

1870 Took part, at nineteen, in a solar eclipse expedition to Oran in Algeria.

1871 Bought a 12-inch reflector from Grubbs of Dublin and erected it in an observatory in the garden of Daramona House.

1881 Replaced the first telescope with a 24-inch Grubb reflector and erected it in a new dome adjoining Daramona House.

1882 Observed the transit of Venus across the disk of the Sun.

1886 Married Caroline Granville of Biarritz.

1888 Elected Member of the Royal Irish Academy.

1892 Purchased a new mount and an electrically controlled clock drive for the 24-inch telescope.

1893 Started to photograph nebulae and star clusters.

1894-91 Made the first accurate estimate of the temperature of the solar photosphere

1895 In April with FitzGerald and Minchin, made the first photo-electric measurements of the brightness of stars.

1896 Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

1898 Took cinematograph pictures of a large sunspot over four hours at the rate of 100 exposures an hour.

1900 Took part in the successful joint Royal Irish Academy - Royal Dublin Society solar eclipse expedition to Plasencia in Spain and obtained a superb photograph of the solar corona.

1901 Awarded an honorary D.Sc. by Trinity College Dublin.

1902 Carried out a photographic search for a planet beyond Neptune.

1908 Died at Daramona on 6 March at the age of 57.