Ralph Allen Sampson

Ralph Allen Sampson (June 25 1866 – November 7 1939) was a British astronomer.

He graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge in 1888. In 1895 he became professor of mathematics at Durham College in Newcastle-on-Tyne. He had been a student of John Couch Adams, and helped to edit and publish Part I of the second volume of Adams' papers in 1900. In December 1910 he became Astronomer Royal for Scotland and became professor of astronomy at the University of Edinburgh. He did pioneering work in measuring the color temperature of stars.

He did important research into the theory of the motions of Jupiter's four Galilean satellites, for which he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1928.

Sampson crater on the Moon is named after him.

External links

* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0088//0000334.000.html Awarding of RAS Gold Medal: MNRAS 88 (1928) 334]
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/Obs../0051//0000065.000.html Awarding of RAS Gold Medal: Obs 51 (1928) 65]

Obituaries

* [http://adsbit.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0100//0000258.000.html MNRAS 100 (1940) 258– 263]
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/Obs../0063//0000105.000.html Obs 63 (1940) 105] (one paragraph)