Thomas Henderson was born in Dundee, Scotland back in 1798. He was educated at the High School of Dundee. After graduation, he trained to be a lawyer. His hobby was astronomy and mathematics. His attention to astronomy caught the attention of Thomas Young the superintendent of the Royal Navy’s “Nautical Almanac”.
Young wrote a letter recommending him to take his place upon his death. He was passed over when Young died but was given a position at the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He returned to Britain due to poor health in the 1830’s. He died at his home in 1844, he was 45.
What you may not know about Thomas is that when he returned to Britain is that he was named the first Astronomer Royal for Scotland. He was also the first person to measure the distance to a star using parallax. His measurement was less than one parsec (One parsec corresponds to the distance at which the mean radius of the earth's orbit subtends an angle of one second of arc). Not bad, not bad at all for the time he lived in.
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