Asteroid (3282) Spencer Jones

Named in memory of Harold Spencer Jones (1890-1960), successively astronomical assistant at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, H.M. astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope, and Astronomer Royal (1933-1955).  He also served as president of the IAU (1945-1948).  His work was devoted to fundamental positional astronomy, and he conclusively demonstrated that the small residuals in the apparent motions of the planets were due to the irregular rotation of the earth.

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SAQ Memoire

MEMOIRE

sur les origines et l'oeuvre de
la SOCIÉTÉ ASTRONOMIQUE DE QUÉBEC
affiliée à la
R.A.S.C.
SOCIÉTÉ ROYALE D'ASTRONOMIE DU CANADA

---oooOooo---

Ce mémoire a été présenté à l'Honourable M. Perrier, Secrétaire de al Province, dans le but d'obtenir l'aide du gouvernement en faveur du mouvement scientifique créé par la SOCIÉTÉ ASTRONOMIQUE DE QUÉBEC.

Préparé le 5 septembre 1942.
Revisé le 17 novembre 1942.

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Asteroid (3145) Walter Adams

Named in memory of Walter Sydney Adams (1876-1956), whose spectroscopic studies of sunspots and stars led to the discovery, with A. Kohlschutter, of a spectroscopic method for determining stellar distances, the relative intensities of spectral lines being used to determine absolute magnitudes of both giant and main-sequence stars.  Adams identified Sirius B as the first white-dwarf star known, and his measurement of its gravitational redshift was taken as confirming evidence for the general theory of relativity.

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Asteroid (3797) Ching-Sung Yu

Named in memory of Ching-Sung Yu (1897-1978), Chinese-American astrophysicist, whose spectrophotometric measurements of 91 stars at the Lick Observatory in the early 1920s represented a milestone in research on stellar energy distribution.  After returning to China he established the Purple Mountain Observatory and served as its first director.  He also developed the site of what is now the Yunnan Observatory, was director of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of Astronomy and president of the Chinese Astronomical Society.

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Asteroid (2261) Keeler

Named in memory of James Edwin Keeler (1857-1900), pioneer American astrophysicist and second director of the Lick Observatory.  He measured accurately the wavelengths of the chief nebular lines, confirmed spectroscopically the particle nature of Saturn’s rings and recognized the spiral "nebulae" as numerous, important constituents of the universe.  In 1899 he also discovered photographically with the Crossley reflector the faint minor planet (452) Hamiltonia.  Citation prepared by D. E. Osterbrock.

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Asteroid (2413) van de Hulst

Named in honor of Hendrik Christoffel van de Hulst, husband of Wil van de Hulst (see 2412) and astrophysicist at the Leiden Observatory.  A leader in the development of radioastronomy in the Netherlands, van de Hulst predicted the instellar hydrogen 21-cm line.  He has made contributions to the theory of light scattering by small particles, about which topic he wrote two books. He was active in promoting international cooperation in space research.

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Astronomy...

Astronomy, A Hobby of Many Colours; A Beginner's Guide to Astronomy

by Winnipeg Centre - Royal Astronomical society of Canada

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Asteroid (2635) Huggins

Named for William Huggins (1824-1910), pioneer in astronomical spectroscopy.  Huggins stated that the chemical elements on the earth also existed in the stars, discovered the gaseous nature of bright nebulae, was the first to study the spectrum of a nova and measured the radial velocity of Sirius.

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Asteroid (2658) Gingerich

Named in honor of Owen Jay Gingerich, Harvard professor of astronomy and of the history of science, and an astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.  Although he has made important contributions to the modeling of stellar atmospheres, he is best known for effectively setting the standards of scholarship for modern studies of the history of astronomy and astrophysics.

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Asteroid (2227) Otto Struve

Named in memory of Otto Struvé (1897-1963), last of a remarkable astronomical lineage. His great-grandfather, Wilhelm Struvé, founded the Pulkovo Observatory in 1839; his grandfather (Otto), uncle (Hermann) and father (Ludwig) were also distinguished astronomers.  Following a period of great privation and misery after World War I, he was invited by Edwin B. Frost to come to the Yerkes Observatory in 1921.

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