Career
During the 1860s he performed the first observations of stellar spectra at the observatory, under the direction of the Astronomer Royal George Airy. In 1861-1862 he was one of three astronomers to successfully observe the dark underside of the rings of Saturn, the other two astronomers being William Wray and Otto Struve. In 1871, the engineer James Nasmyth partnered with James Carpenter to produce a book about the Moon titled, The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite.
This work was illustrated by photographs of plaster models representing the lunar surface, with the illumination from various angles.
The authors were proponents for a volcanic origin of the craters, a theory that was later proved incorrect. The crater Carpenter on the Moon is jointly named after him and Edwin Francis Carpenter.
