From the time of John Flamsteed ( 1646 – 1719 ) it had been believed that the Earth's daily rotation was uniform.

There are examples of stars bearing Flamsteed designations for constellations in which they do not lie, just as there are for Bayer designations, because of the compromises that had to be made when the modern constellation boundaries were drawn up.

Flamsteed was greatly impressed ( as Isaac Newton had been ) by the work of Horrocks.

( Newton had also communicated ' De motu ...' to Flamsteed, and during the period of composition he exchanged a few letters with Flamsteed about observational data on the planets, eventually acknowledging Flamsteed's contributions in the published version of the ' Principia ' of 1687.

Newton referred to his plans for a second edition in correspondence with Flamsteed in November 1694: Newton also maintained annotated copies of the first edition specially bound up with interleaves on which he could note his revisions ; two of these copies still survive: but he had not completed the revisions by 1708, and of two would-be editors, Newton had almost severed connections with one, Fatio de Duillier, and the other, David Gregory seems not to have met with Newton's approval and was also terminally ill, dying later in 1708.

Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley wanted it published immediately, to support their work on orbits, while John Flamsteed, the Royal Astronomer whose observations they were, wanted to keep the data secret until he had perfected it.

In 1797 William's observations had shown that there were a great many discrepancies in the star catalogue published by John Flamsteed, which was difficult to use due to its having been published as two volumes, the catalogue proper and a volume of original observations.

The resulting Catalogue of Stars was published by the Royal Society in 1798 and contained an index of every observation of every star made by Flamsteed, a list of errata, and a list of more than 560 stars that had not been included.

Dr Edleston, in his preface to Newton's correspondence with Cotes, justly remarks: " If Flamsteed the Astronomer-Royal had cordially co-operated with him in the humble capacity of an observer in the way that Newton pointed out and requested Of him ... the lunar theory would, if its creator did not overrate his own powers, have been completely investigated, so far as he could do it, in the first few months of 1695, and a second edition of the Principia would probably have followed the execution of the task at no long interval.

He admitted the imperfection of his data on stars, noting that Flamsteed had refused to assist him, but he vaunted his coverage of astronomy, especially his full coverage of Newton's theories of the moon and of comets.

The publication assigned Gould designations to all bright stars within 100 degrees of the south celestial pole in a manner similar to what Flamsteed had earlier done for the northern hemisphere.

His wide knowledge of mathematics and astronomy attracted Flamsteed's attention and it was through Flamsteed that Sharp was invited, in 1688, to enter the Greenwich Royal Observatory.

Flamsteed designations for stars are similar to Bayer designations, except that they use numbers instead of Greek letters.

The designations gained popularity throughout the eighteenth century, and are now commonly used when no Bayer designation exists ; however, where a Bayer designation does exist for a star it is used almost exclusively and the Flamsteed designation is almost never used.

Some entries in Flamsteed's catalog are errors: for instance, Flamsteed observed Uranus in 1690 but did not recognize it as a planet and entered it into his catalog as a star called " 34 Tauri ".

HD numbers are widely used today for stars which have no Bayer or Flamsteed designation.

In August 1665, at the age of nineteen and as a gift for his friend Litchford, Flamsteed wrote his first paper on astronomy, entitled Mathematical Essays, concerning the design, use and construction of an astronomer's quadrant, including tables for the latitude of Derby.

In June 1675, another royal warrant provided for the founding of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and Flamsteed laid the foundation stone in August.

As Astronomer Royal, Flamsteed spent some forty years observing and making meticulous records for his star catalogue, which would eventually triple the number of entries in Tycho Brahe's sky atlas.

It was considered the first significant contribution of the Greenwich Observatory, and the numerical Flamsteed designations for stars that were added subsequently to a French edition are still in use.

The science block at John Port School is named Flamsteed in recognition of his work for science.

At this time the king also created the position of Astronomer Royal ( initially filled by John Flamsteed ), to serve as the director of the observatory and to " apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying of the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so much desired longitude of places for the perfecting of the art of navigation.

He also gives starting at Lemma 4 and Proposition 40 ) the theory of the motions of comets ( for which much data came from John Flamsteed and from Edmond Halley ), and accounts for the tides, attempting quantitative estimates of the contributions of the Sun and Moon to the tidal motions ; and offers the first theory of the precession of the equinoxes.

It has the traditional name Hamal, which comes from the Arabic phrase for " head of the ram ", and the Flamsteed designation of 13 Arietis.

Halifax is reported to have left Catherine Barton, Newton's niece, a sizable inheritance for " her excellent conversation ," as John Flamsteed wryly reported at the time.

The result was that Arbuthnot used his leverage as friend and physician to Prince George, whose money was paying for the publication, to force Flamsteed to allow it out, albeit with serious errors, in 1712.

Flamsteed House, was first opened for visitors by Queen Elizabeth II in 1960.

The Flamsteed designation for this star, 51 Pegasi, was assigned by John Flamsteed in his star atlas published in 1712.

In the other letters written in 1685 and 1686, he asks Flamsteed for information about the orbits of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the rise and fall of the spring and neap tides at the solstices and the equinoxes, about the flattening of Jupiter at the poles ( which, if certain, he says, would conduce much to the stating the reasons of the precession of the equinoxes ), and about the universal application of Kepler's third law.

Except for correspondence with Flamsteed we hear nothing more of the preparation of the Principia until April 21, 1686, when Halley read to the Royal Society his Discourse concerning Gravity and its Properties, in which he states " that his worthy countryman Mr Isaac Newton has an incomparable treatise of motion almost ready for the press ," and that the law of the inverse square " is the principle on which Mr Newton has made out all the phenomena of the celestial motions so easily and naturally, that its truth is past dispute.

Three hundred years later, the American astronomical historian William Ashworth suggested that what Flamsteed may have seen was the most recent supernova in the galaxy's history, an event which would leave as its remnant the strongest radio source outside of the solar system, known in the third Cambridge ( 3C ) catalogue as 3C 461 and commonly called Cassiopeia A by astronomers.

John Flamsteed ( 1835 ) is of fundamental importance to the scientific history of that time.

* 1646 – John Flamsteed, English astronomer ( d. 1719 )

John Flamsteed, from measurements made in 1689 and succeeding years with his mural quadrant, similarly concluded that the declination of the Pole Star was 40 ″ less in July than in September.

* CS Cam is the second brightest star, though it has neither a Bayer nor a Flamsteed designation.

It is also the only globular cluster to be designated with a Bayer letter ; the globular cluster 47 Tucanae is the only one designated with a Flamsteed number.

Flamsteed designation contained 2554 stars.

It should also be noted that Flamsteed's catalogue covered only the stars visible from Great Britain, and therefore stars of the far southern constellations have no Flamsteed numbers.

Some stars, such as the nearby star 82 Eridani, were named in a major southern-hemisphere catalog called Uranometria Argentina, by Benjamin Gould, and are not true Flamsteed numbers, and should properly contain a G, as in 82 G. Eridani.

There are 52 constellations that primarily utilize Flamsteed designations.

* 1782 Vorstellung der Gestirne ... des Flamsteadschen Himmelsatlas ( Bode's revised and enlarged edition of Fortin's small star atlas of Flamsteed.

:: Verzeichniss ( Containing the above star atlas, and including 5, 058 stars observed by Flamsteed, Hevelius, T. Mayer, de la Caille, Messier, le Monnier, Darquier and Bode himself.

* 1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England.

Later a numbering system based on the star's right ascension was invented and added to John Flamsteed's star catalogue in his book " Historia coelestis Britannica " ( the 1712 edition ), whereby this numbering system came to be called Flamsteed designation or Flamsteed numbering.

Bayer and Flamsteed covered only a few thousand stars between them.

* December – Earliest recorded sighting of the planet Uranus, by John Flamsteed, who mistakenly catalogues it as the star 34 Tauri.

* August 19 – John Flamsteed, English astronomer ( d. 1719 )

* December 31 – John Flamsteed, English astronomer ( b. 1646 )

John Flamsteed FRS ( 19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719 ) was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal.