J. Ellard (John Ellard) Gore

Born in Athlone, Ireland, in 1845, John Ellard Gore was an amateur astronomer, science writer, and one of the founding members of the British Astronomical Association. He also worked as a civil engineer in India before settling back in Ireland, where he devoted much of his life to observing the heavens and writing about them for general readers.

Gore became especially well known for his work on variable stars and binary stars. He discovered several variable stars, including W Cygni and U Orionis, and served as the first director of the British Astronomical Association's Variable Star Section. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and wrote many papers as well as a long list of astronomy books that helped non-specialists follow the fast-changing astronomy of the late nineteenth century.

What makes his books still appealing is the mix of curiosity and clarity in his writing. He was deeply interested in the scale and structure of the universe, but he explained big ideas in a way that welcomed ordinary readers into the subject rather than shutting them out.