Richard Christopher Carrington (May 26 1826 – November 27 1875) was an English astronomer who discovered the differential rotation of the sun by means of sunspot observations in 1863. In 1859 he already was the first one to see a solar flare and suspected its connection with a geomagnetic storm observed later that day. Even though Carrington did not discover the 11 years sunspot activity cycle, his observations of the sunspot activity after he heard about Heinrich Schwabe observations led to the numbering of the cycles being done with his name. Thus the sunspot maximum of 2002 was of the Carrington Cycle #23.

Carrington made the initial observations leading to the establishment of Spörer's law.

He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1859.

External links

• Biography at High Altitude Observatory