Nevil Maskelyne

Nevil Maskelyne FRS FRSE (/ˈmæskəlɪn/; 6 October 1732 – 9 February 1811) was the fifth British Astronomer Royal. He held the office from 1765 to 1811. He was the first person to scientifically measure the mass of the planet Earth. He created The Nautical Almanac, in full the British Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris for the Meridian of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, using Tobias Mayer's corrections for Leonhard Euler's Lunar Theory tables.