John GoodrickeFRS (17 September 1764 – 20 April 1786) was an English amateur astronomer. He is best known for his observations of the variable starAlgol (Beta Persei) in 1782.
After leaving Warrington, Goodricke returned to live with his parents in York. There, he became friends with his neighbour Edward Pigott, whose father Nathaniel Pigott had built a sophisticated private observatory. Edward was already interested in variable stars, and he gave Goodricke a list of those that he thought were worthy of observation.
Goodricke is credited with discovering the periodic variation of β Lyrae[2] and δ Cephei, the prototypical example of the Cepheid variable stars.[3]
Although several stars were already known to vary in apparent magnitude, Goodricke was the first to propose a mechanism to account for this. He suggested that Algol is what is now known as an eclipsing binary. He presented his findings to the Royal Society in May 1783, and for this work, the Society awarded him the Copley Medal for that year. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 16 April 1786. He never learned of this honour however, as he died four days later from pneumonia.[4] He never married.
Today there is a marker in York near the site of John Goodricke's observatory.
In 1949, Sidney Melmore[6] showed that Goodricke worked from the Treasurer's House (now owned by the National Trust) very near York Minster, and concluded that he had observed from the north window of the top floor of the south-east wing, looking south towards the Minster. However, records indicate that the Goodricke family had rented rooms from Edward Topham, the then owner of the northwest wing of the house.[7]
The University of York has a Goodricke College named after John Goodricke.[9]
The Goodricke-Pigott Observatory is a private astronomical observatory in Tucson, Arizona, named after both Goodricke and Pigott. It was formally dedicated on 26 October 1996.[10]
Anda, Rune. "Goodricke's handwritten letters and tables of observations". Retrieved 12 January 2019. Features scans of his notes retrieved from the York City Archives and other biographical information. Website in Norwegian, scans in English.
