Meteorological instrumentation rain gauge. In 1714, Gabriel Fahrenheit creates a reliable scale for measuring temperature with a mercury-type thermometer. In 1742, Anders Celsius, a Swedish astronomer, proposed the 'centigrade' temperature scale, the predecessor of the current Celsius scale. In 1783, the first hair hygrometer is demonstrated by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In 1806, Francis Beaufort introduced his system for classifying wind speeds. The April 1960 launch of the first successful weather satellite, TIROS-1, marked the beginning of the age where weather information became available globally. This was also used to measure the temperature of the surrounding air. A thermometer measures air temperature, or
Thomas Henderson (astronomer) Thomas Henderson (astronomer) Thomas Henderson FRSE FRS FRAS (28 December 1798 – 23 November 1844) was a Scottish astronomer and mathematician noted for being the first person to measure the distance to Alpha Centauri, the major component of the nearest stellar system to Earth, the first to determine the parallax of a fixed star, and for being the first Astronomer Royal for Scotland. Born in Dundee, he was educated at the High School of Dundee, after which he trained as a lawyer, working his way up through the profession as an assistant to a variety of nobles. However, his major