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George Alcock, a retired schoolmaster who lived in Cambridgeshire, was acknowledged by professionals worldwide as one of the most successful amateur astronomers of this century. Kay Williams's remarkable portrait of an unsung hero was published to much acclaim in 1996 in a limited edition of 2,000 copies, and we still have some copies left for sale. Under An English Heaven makes a wonderful gift for any devotee of astronomy or general stargazer.
As a member of the Meteor Section of the British Astronomical Association between 1931 and 1951, George Alcock made a significant contribution to the understanding of meteors. In 1959 he found a new comet - the first to be discovered in Britain since 1894.
Alcock died in December 2000, aged 88, leaving a remarkable tally of major
discoveries: five comets and five novae. A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Geographical Society, he was also a meteorologist, and a keen naturalist, ornithologist and geologist. In 1950 he discovered a previously undetected section of a Roman road.
Included in this biography are many of his fine sketches of comets, planets, cloud formations, flora and fauna, churches, and the 1944 eruption of Vesuvius, which he witnessed during his wartime service as an RAF meteorological assistant.
He was a medallist of the British Astronomical Association, the Royal Astronomical Society, the American Association of Variable Star Observers and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. In 1979 he was awarded an MBE, and in 1992 he became a member of the elite New York Academy of Sciences.
FOREWORD by Dr Brian G. Marsden, Director of the Minor Planet Center and the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. A graduate of the Universities of Oxford and Yale, Dr Marsden is also a prominent member of the International Astronomical Union.
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