1. Belteki, Daniel. 2021. The spring of order: Robert Main’s management of astronomical labor at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. History of Science: 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/00732753211028434.
2. Brünnow, Franz. 1860. Brünnow’s spherical astronomy, Part I, Including the chapters on parallax, refraction, aberration, precession, and nutation. Trans. Rev. Robert Main. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell and Co. Orig. publ. Brünnow, F. (1851). Lehrbuch der Sphärischen Astronomie. Berlin: F. Dümmler.
3. Clerke, Agnes Mary. 1893. Main, Robert. In Dictionary of national biography, 1885–1900, vol. 35, 342–343. London: Elder Smith and Co.
4. Johnson, Manuel J. 1859. An address delivered at the annual general meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, February 12, 1858, on presenting the gold medal of the Society to the Reverend Robert Main, M.A. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 27: 153–159.
5. ———. 1860. The Radcliffe Catalogue of 6317 stars, chiefly circumpolar, reduced to the epoch 1845.0, formed from the observations made at the Radcliffe Observatory. Oxford: J. H. and Jas. Parker.