Colour enhanced Mars Map, Stereographic Projection. Richard Anthony Proctor (March 23, 1837 - September 12, 1888) was an English astronomer. He is best remembered for having produced one of the earliest maps of Mars in 1867 from 27 drawings by the English observer William Rutter Dawes. Proctor earned a scholarship at St John's College, Cambridge. His first book Saturn and its System was published in 1865. He became quite popular, and his numerous works had a wide influence in familiarizing the public with the main facts of astronomy. He became a regular contributor to The Intellectual Observer, Chambers Journal and the Popular Science Review. His largest and most ambitious work, Old and New Astronomy, left unfinished at his death, was completed by Arthur Cowper Ranyard and published in 1892. He settled in America some time after his second marriage in 1881, and died of yellow fever in 1888. |