Edward Pigott was a British amateur astronomer and star-gazing colleague of John Goodricke who, in 1784, discovered the variability of Eta Aquilae, later recognized as the first known Cepheid variable. In 1795, he also found R Coronae Borealis, the prototype of another important class of variable (see R Coronae Borealis star), and R Scuti (the brightest RV Tauri star). He was the son of Nathaniel Piggott (1725?–1804), also an astronomer, who built an observatory at his estate in Glamorgan, Wales.