Chandler, Seth Carlo

Seth Carlo Chandler, (born Sept. 17, 1846, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died Dec. 31, 1913, Wellesley Hills, Mass.), American astronomer best known for his discovery (1884–85) of the Chandler Wobble, a movement in Earth’s axis of rotation that causes latitude to vary with a period of about 433 days. A wandering of the rotation axis had been predicted by Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1765. Chandler’s detection of this effect was facilitated by his invention of the almucantar, a device for measuring the positions of stars relative to a circle centred at the zenith rather than to the meridian. The North Pole of Earth’s rotation axis wanders in an irregular, quasi-circular path with a radius of about 8–10 metres (26–33 feet).

Chandler initially worked for the U.S. Coast Survey (1864–70). He then worked as an actuary until he joined the Harvard University Observatory in 1881. From 1896 to 1909 he edited The Astronomical Journal.