Charles Piazzi Smyth

1819 - 1900

Photographer

Astronomer Royal for Scotland

Charles Piazzi Smyth born at Naples in 1900 and went on to become the 2nd Astronomer Royal for Scotland, a post that he held from 1846 until 1888.

Infra Red Photography

Charles Piazzi Smyth was a pioneer of infra-red photography.

Observations and Experiments

The book The Peripatetic Astronomer contains many photographs,  paintings and drawings of his observations and experiments, all by Charles Piazzi Smyth.

Stereoscopic Photography

Charles Piazzi Smyth produced the first book using stereoscopic photographs.

Pyramid Photography

He gained a reputation for his photographs of the pyramids using a miniature camera.  He gave a lecture to Edinburgh Photographic Society in 1869 on this work

Cloud Photography

Charles Piazzi Smyth, in later years while living at Ripon in North Yorkshire, took a particular interest in cloud photography.

He died at Clova, near Ripon in 1900.