James Craig Watson
James Craig Watson (January 28 1838 – November 22 1880) was a Canadian-American astronomer born in the village of Fingal in Ontario, Canada.
His family relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1850.
He was the second director of Detroit Observatory (from 1863 to 1879), succeeding Franz Brünnow. He wrote the textbook Theoretical Astronomy in 1868.
He discovered 22 asteroids, beginning with 79 Eurynome in 1863. However, one of his asteroid discoveries, 139 Juewa was made in Beijing when Watson was there to observe the 1874 transit of Venus. The name Juewa was chosen by Chinese officials (瑞華, or in modern pinyin, ruìhuá).
He was a strong believer in the existence of the planet Vulcan, a hypothetical planet closer to the Sun than Mercury, which is now known not to exist (however the existence of small Vulcanoid planetoids remains a possibility). He believed he had seen such two such planets during a July 1878 solar eclipse in Wyoming.
He died of peritonitis at the age of only 42. He had amassed a considerable amount of money through non-astronomical business activities. By bequest he established the James Craig Watson Medal, awarded every three years by the National Academy of Sciences for contributions to astronomy.
The asteroid Asteroids discovered: 22
| 79 Eurynome || September 14 1863
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| 93 Minerva || August 24 1867
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| 94 Aurora || September 6 1867
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| 100 Hekate || July 11 1868
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| 101 Helena || August 15 1868
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| 103 Hera || September 7 1868
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| 104 Klymene || September 13 1868
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| 105 Artemis || September 16 1868
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| 106 Dione || October 10 1868
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| 115 Thyra || August 6 1871
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| 119 Althaea || April 3 1872
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| 121 Hermione || May 12 1872
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| 128 Nemesis || November 25 1872
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| 132 Aethra || June 13 1873
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| 133 Cyrene || August 16 1873
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| 139 Juewa || October 10 1874
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| 150 Nuwa || October 18 1875
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| 161 Athor || April 19 1876
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| 168 Sibylla || September 28 1876
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| 174 Phaedra || September 2 1877
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| 175 Andromache || October 1 1877
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| 179 Klytaemnestra || November 11 1877
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