Lewis Boss

Lewis Boss (October 26, 1846 - October 5, 1912) was an American astronomer. He served as director of the Dudley Observatory in Schenectady, New York. The boss was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in the family of Samuel P. and Lucinda (née Jocelyn). Boss and attended high school at the Lepham Institute in Northern Squit and at the New Hampton Institute in New Hampshire. In 1870, he graduated from Dartmouth College, then went to work as a clerk in the US government. He served as an assistant astronomer on a government expedition to study the US-Canada-US border. In 1876, he became director of the Dudley Observatory in Schenectady, New York. The boss is known for his work on cataloging locations and the correct movements of stars. He also led an expedition to Chile in 1882 to observe the transit of Venus and cataloged information about cometary orbits. His most significant discovery was the calculation of the convergence point of the star cluster of Hyades. He was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal in 1905. He became editor of the Astronomical Journal in 1909, and the following year published a preliminary general catalog of 6188 stars for the 1900 era, a collection of correct star motions. After his death, responsibility for the Astronomy Journal passed to his son, Benjamin Boss. Benjamin continued to edit the magazine until 1941, and also expanded his father’s star catalog by publishing the General Boss Directory in 1936. The boss died on October 5, 1912 in Albany, New York. The Boss Lunar Crater is named after him.