An unconventional thinker who never wore a tie and could have become a master at chess - that's Robert Thorburn Ayton Innes, the brilliant self-taught astronomer Innes Street is named after.
Innes, who left school at 12, became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society at 17 and this amateur turned professional astronomer became famous as the discoverer of Proxima Centauri, a faint companion star to Alpha Centauri - all at our suburb's observatory.
Innes was director of the Observatory from 1903 until 1927. During his time as director it was never called the Republic Observatory, but underwent the following name changes: Government Meteorological Observatory, Transvaal Observatory and Union Observatory.
Although he started off in London, Innes moved to Australia after marrying, where he became a wine merchant. He was successful, but his heart was in the sky. He was encouraged by several Australian astronomers, among them W. F. Gale, celebrated as an observer of comets. Gale loaned him an old 6-inch Cooke refractor, and Innes began his real work: the study of double stars in the Southern Hemisphere.
He decided to make astronomy his career and moved to South Africa in 1896 as secretary-cum-librarian-cum-accountant at the Royal Cape Observatory.
Innes continued his work on double stars, impressing his boss, David Gill, so much that he recommended Innes for the post of Director for the new Observatory in Johannesburg. The new Observatory was created as primarily a meteorological station, with some astronomical functions. Innes became director in 1903, and managed to transform the observatory into a solely astronomical observatory by 1907.
One of his most famous discoveries was that of Proxima Centauri, the faint companion of Alpha Centauri, which was subsequently found to be the nearest star beyond the Sun; it lies at a distance of a mere 4.2 light-years. Innes did not happen upon it by sheer chance. He thought that there might be a dim third star in the Alpha Centauri system, so he started a systematic search for it; he took numerous photographs - and in 1912 he found it.
Innes was a farsighted person and managed to shape the Republic Observatory into a world class observatory. In 1927, the date of publication of his second and last catalogue of southern double stars, Innes finally retired from the Directorship.
He left behind an impressive record. He is credited with the discovery of 1 628 new double stars, and he made many thousands of measurements; his asteroid work was equally outstanding - for instance, in 1924 he suspected that the shape of the strange minor planet Eros was unusual, and using the great refractor in 1931 his successors, van den Bos and Finsen, confirmed this, managing to measure the rotation period.
Innes lived only a few years after his official retirement: while in London, on 13 March 1933, he died suddenly.
Personal: Born 1861 November 10 at Edinburg, Scotland. He was the eldest of six children. Left school at age 12. Thereafter he was self-taught. He ended up awarded an honorary doctorate. 1884: Married Anne Elizabeth, nee Fennel (presumably in Scotland). They had three sons. Died 1933 March 13 in London.
Posted 30 January 2006 by
Bibliography: Laing, J.D. (ed.), The Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope 1820 - 1970 Sesquicentennial Offerings, p. Moore, P. & Collins, P., Astronomy in Southern Africa, pp. 92 - 102. (General Source) Smits P. A Brief History of Astronomy in Southern Africa. (Unpublished).
