Pond, John (1767–1836)

English astronomer. As Astronomer Royal 1811–35 he reorganized and modernized Greenwich Observatory. Instituting new methods of observation, he went on to produce a catalogue of more than 1,000 stars in 1833.

Pond was born in London and studied at Cambridge. At the age of 15, he noticed errors in the observations being made at Greenwich Observatory, and began a thorough investigation of the declination of a number of fixed stars. He travelled in several Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries, making astronomical observations wherever possible. When he returned to England 1798, he established a small private observatory at Westbury near Bristol. By 1806 he had publicly demonstrated that the equipment being used by Maskelyne at Greenwich had become deformed with age and needed replacing. The observations he published led to his appointment as the sixth Astronomer Royal.

When Maskelyne died 1811, Pond was his natural successor and remained Astronomer Royal until 1835. During that time the equipment and methods of observation at Greenwich were completely changed, and the standard of accuracy was greatly improved by repeating each observation several times.