  Harold Knox-Shaw (1885-1970) worked at the Helwan Observatory in Egypt from
1907 to 1924. The Observatory was equipped with a 30-inch (76 cm) reflector
that was financed and constructed by the Birmingham industrialist, John
Reynolds (1874-1949), to benefit from the clearer skies and more southerly
latitude compared with Britain. Knox-Shaw obtained the first photograph of
Halley's Comet on its 1910 perihelion passage. He also carried out
morphological studies on nebulae and may have been the first to identify what
later became to be known as elliptical galaxies as a distinct class of object.
Photographic analysis of the variable nebula NGC 6729 in Corona Australis
enabled him to conclude that the changes in brightness and shape were
correlated with the light travel time from the illuminating star, R CrA.
