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He obtained a job (1857) in the American Nautical Almanac Office (in Cambridge, Mass. at that time). He studied at Harvard graduating in 1858. In 1861 Newcomb was appointed to the Naval Observatory at Washington. He spent the next10 years determining the positions of celestial objects using various telescopes including a 26-inch refractor telescope which had just been built.
In 1877 Newcomb became director of the American Nautical Almanac Office (by this time in Washington). He then started his most important work which, in his own words, gave
... a systematic determination of the constants of astronomy from the best existing data, a reinvestigation of the theories of the celestial motions, and the preparation of tables, formulae, and precepts for the construction of ephemerides, and for other applications of the same results.
The reason he undertook this work was because of the
... confusion which pervaded the whole system of exact astronomy, arising from the diversity of the fundamental data made use of by the astronomers of foreign countries and various institutions in their work.
Newcomb was professor of mathematics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins (1884-1893). He was an editor of the American Journal of Mathematics for many years. He was also a founding member and first president (1899-1905) of the American Astronomical Society.
References elsewhere in this archive:
Tell me about Newcomb's work on orbits and gravitation
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References:
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