Almost a Discovery

Narrowly losing out to a Russian astronomer in the 1920s did not stop Francis Morshead becoming one of New Plymouth's most well known star gazers. Morshead, who served as the director of the New Plymouth Observatory between 1925 and 1958, made many sightings and observations over the years. At one stage he discovered what  he thought was an unnamed comet. Unfortunately he soon found out a Russian astronomer had spotted the same comet and beat him to the name by a number of weeks. This was the private telescope of Morshead and it was donated to Taranaki Museum in 1977.