Richard Anthony Proctor was an English astronomer. He is best remembered for having produced one of the earliest maps of Mars in 1867 from 27 drawings by the English observer William Rutter Dawes. His map was later superseded by those of Giovanni Schiaparelli and Eugène Antoniadi and his nomenclature was dropped .
He used old drawings of Mars dating back to 1666 to try to determine the sidereal day of Mars. His final estimate, in 1873, was 24h 37m 22.713s, very close to the modern value of 24h 37m 22.663s. Nevertheless, Frederik Kaiser's value of 24h 37m 22.622s is closer, by 0.012 seconds in 88,642.688 seconds, a very small difference in the error of both computations.
The crater Proctor on Mars is named after him. Wikipedia
Of the Ptolemaic system
Source: Saturn and its System (2nd ed 1882), Chapter 2, p. 32
Source: Saturn and its System (2nd ed 1882), Chapter 1, p. 2
"Sir John Herschel", p. 1
Astronomical Essays (1872)
