William Huggins

Sir William Huggins was a British astronomer, born at Cornhill, Middlesex, on 7 February 1824, best known for his pioneering work in astronomical spectroscopy together with his wife Margaret. He built a private observatory at Upper Tulse Hill in London, from where the couple made extensive observations of the spectral emission and absorption lines of celestial objects. On 29 August 1864 he was the first to take the spectrum of a planetary nebula, analysing NGC 6543, and he was the first to distinguish between nebulae and galaxies by showing that some had the pure emission spectra of gas while others, like the Andromeda Galaxy, had the spectral characteristics of stars. He was also the first to adopt dry plate photography in imaging astronomical objects. He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1867 and again in 1885, was its president from 1876 to 1878, and received the Copley Medal in 1898.