Bishop Observatory

Bishop Observatory was a private observatory built in 1836 by the wine-merchant-turned-astronomer George Bishop beside his home in London's Regent's Park.

About Bishop Observatory

George Bishop's Observatory stood next to South Villa, Bishop's residence in the Inner Circle of Regent's Park, London, and carried the astronomical observatory code 969. Bishop, who had made his fortune in the wine trade, funded the observatory and its instruments himself, chief among them a 7-inch (180mm) Dollond refractor.

History

Erected in 1836, the observatory quickly became a serious centre of research. The Reverend William Rutter Dawes carried out his noted studies of double stars there between 1839 and 1844, and the astronomer John Russell Hind began his career at the site shortly after. When Bishop died in 1861 the observatory closed, and in 1863 its dome and instruments were moved to Meadowbank in Twickenham, where his son George Bishop Jr. built a successor observatory that continued the same programme of work until it, too, closed in 1877; its instruments eventually passed to the Capodimonte Observatory in Italy.

Location & getting there

The original site, in the Inner Circle of Regent's Park in central London, is now occupied by Regent's University London, so nothing of the observatory itself remains to visit today.

Visiting Bishop Observatory

Because the building no longer exists, there is nothing on site to tour; visitors interested in its history can instead walk through Regent's Park, where the observatory once stood, or read the historical record of the double-star observations made there.

See your named star from here

Dawes and Hind used Bishop's 7-inch refractor to pin down the precise positions of double stars, the same kind of coordinate work that lets any telescope today find a star named through star-register.eu. Browse the star catalogue or see our naming packages to find yours.