Lamont Martian Crater & Lamont Memorial - Inverey, Aberdeenshire.
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creg-ny-baa
N 56° 59.113 W 003° 29.950
30V E 469664 N 6315851
Monument to John Lamont near his birthplace in the Scottish Highlands, who became Johann von Lamont, the Astronomer Royal of Bavaria, and who had a Martian crater named after him.
Waymark Code: WM11NG2
Location: Northern Scotland, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 11/20/2019
Views: 1
John Lamont was born on December 15th 1805 near the hamlet of Inverey in the highlands of Aberdeenshire. He was educated locally until the age of twelve, when upon the death of his father he moved to Germany and was educated at St.James Monastery in Ratisbon. He soon started to study astronomy and by 1852 was the Professor of Astronomy at Munich University. Amongst his better known work was the study of the magnetism of the Earth, and the orbits of the moons of Uranus and Saturn. After germanising his name to Johann von Lamont, he was eventually made the Astronomer Royal of Bavaria by the King of Bavaria. He died in Munich on August 6th 1879.
A memorial was erected in his memory by the Deeside Field Club in 1934 at Inverey and was unveiled by Sir James Jeans. The grey granite structure lies next to a car park in the hamlet and carries the following inscription:
'THIS STONE COMMEMORATES JOHN LAMONT
1805-1879
WHO WAS BORN AT CORRIEMULZIE
HIS NAME IS WRITTEN IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AS
JOHANN VON LAMONT
ASTRONOMER ROYAL OF BAVARIA'
He then went on to have a crater on Mars named after him. The Lamont Crater is 76km in diameter and lies in the Thuaumasia Quadrangle of Mars.