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Photo 1952, courtesy Dr. H. W. Babcock | |
| Harold Delos Babcock | ||
| 24 January 1882 | 1953 Bruce Medalist | 8 April 1968 |
Educated at the University of California, Harold Babcock was one of the first staff members of the Mt. Wilson Observatory, where he remained from 1909 to 1948. In the early years he participated in solar research with George E. Hale. Babcock’s precise laboratory studies of atomic spectra allowed others to identify the first “forbidden” lines in the laboratory and to discover the rare isotopes of oxygen. With C.E. St. John he greatly improved the precision of the wavelengths of some 22,000 lines in the solar spectrum, referring them to newly-determined standards, and extending measurements into the ultraviolet and infrared. With his son, Horace W. Babcock, he measured the distribution of magnetic fields over the solar surface to unprecedented precision. The Babcocks ruled excellent large gratings, including those used in the coudé spectrographs of the 100 and 200-inch telescopes.
Presentation of Bruce medal
Kron, Gerald E., PASP 65, 65 (1953).
Some offices held
Astronomical Society of the Pacific, President, 1937.
Biographical materials
Bowen, Ira S., Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Science 45, 1-19 (1975).
Obituaries
Joy, A.H., Sky & Telescope 35, 350 (1968).
Plaskett, H.H., QJRAS 10, 68-72 (1969).
Science 160, 520 (1968).
More obituaries
Photos
AIP Center for History of Physics
Named after him
Lunar crater Babcock
Minor Planet #3167 Babcock (with H.W. Babcock)
| Please send comments, additions, corrections, and questions to joe.tenn@sonoma.edu |
JST
2005-04-26 |