Undeterred, Flamsteed managed to retrieve 300 of the 400 copies printed and destroy them.

BBC: A Point of View: Crowd-sourcing comets

Newton maintained that Flamsteed was a public servant, and therefore his work was public property, but to no avail.

BBC: A Point of View: Crowd-sourcing comets

The scientific community-wide collaborative observations of the 1680 comet, including Flamsteed's purloined data, were subsequently printed as important evidence in Newton's Principia in 1687.

BBC: A Point of View: Crowd-sourcing comets

His own star catalogue, the Historia Coelestis Britannica, was eventually published posthumously by his wife and co-observer at the Observatory, Margaret Flamsteed, in 1725.

BBC: A Point of View: Crowd-sourcing comets

Twenty years later, Flamsteed would again obstruct scientific progress by refusing to publish his by now huge amount of accumulated data, in the form of star charts for the use of sea captains.

BBC: A Point of View: Crowd-sourcing comets

John Flamsteed became the first Astronomer Royal.

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The enthusiastic collaboration among the wider community of 17th Century astronomers, across nations and continents, continuing to exchange astronomical observations even when their countries were at war with one another, is in stark contrast to Flamsteed's relentless withholding.

BBC: A Point of View: Crowd-sourcing comets

The first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, compiled the most accurate star catalogue of his day as part of this attempt (though the solution was eventually provided by John Harrison, a clock maker who designed a timepiece that was robust enough to withstand the rigours of sea travel, and was thus able to substitute for the stars in the relevant calculations).

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