Copeland, Ralph (1837-1905)

British astronomer. His astronomical interests were very wide but most of his original contributions were in spectroscopy, particularly of comets and novae.

Born in Lancashire, he emigrated to Australia 1853 and was engaged in sheep farming and gold prospecting in Victoria. It was there that he became interested in astronomy and he returned to England 1858 in the hope of going to Cambridge. As he was not accepted, he entered a firm of engineers in Manchester but kept up his interest in astronomy, and was able to begin his formal studies at Göttingen 1865. He was awarded a PhD there 1869 and took part in a German scientific expedition to Greenland.

After short spells at the Birr Castle and Dunsink observatories and an 1874 expedition to Mauritius to observe the transit of Venus, Copeland succeeded David Gill 1876 as director of the observatory at Dun Echt, near Aberdeen, remaining there until he was chosen to succeed Charles Piazzi Smyth as Astronomer Royal for Scotland 1889. At the same time the Dun Echt Observatory and its very valuable library were given to Scotland to form the nucleus of a new national observatory. Copeland was responsible for planning this new Royal Observatory, which was built on Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, and opened 1896.