Benjamin Apthorp Gould was a pioneering American astronomer. He is noted for creating the Astronomical Journal, discovering the Gould Belt, and for founding of the Argentine National Observatory and the Argentine National Weather Service.

The Argentine National Observatory, today the Astronomical Observatory of Córdoba, was founded on 24 October 1871, by Argentine president Domingo F. Sarmiento and the North American astronomer Benjamin Apthorp Gould.