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<font size="+5"><b><a href="../Intro.html" target="main"><font color="#CC6600">The Bruce Medalists</font></a></b></font>
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<tr><td width = "33%"> </td><td width = "34%" align="center"><a href="pickering.jpg"><img src="pickeringSml.jpg" alt="photo" height="105" width="91" border="2"></a></td><td width="33%" valign="middle"><font size="-2">Photo c. 1895, courtesy Mary Lea Shane Archives, Lick Observatory</font></td><td> </td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3" align=center><font size="+2"><b><font color="#cc6600">Edward Charles Pickering</font></b></fONT></td>
<tr><td><b>19 July 1846</b></td> <td align="center"><b>1908 Bruce Medalist</b></td>
<td align="right"><b>3 February 1919</b></td>
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<p>Edward C. Pickering, a Harvard graduate, taught physics for ten years at the <b><a href="http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/mithistory/index.html">Massachusetts Institute of Technology</a></b>, where he built the first instructional physics laboratory in the United States. Appointed at age thirty, he directed the <b><a href="http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/hco/index.html">Harvard College Observatory</a></b> for forty-two years. He and his staff made visual photometric studies of 45,000 stars. With funds provided by Henry Draper’s widow, Anna Palmer Draper, he hired a number of <b><a href="http://www.acad.carleton.edu/curricular/PHYS/Astro/pages/marga_michele/harvard.html">women</a></b>, including <b><a href="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1911ApJ....34..314C">Williamina P. Fleming</a></b>, <b><a href="http://www.wellesley.edu/Astronomy/annie/index.html">Annie J. Cannon</a></b>, <b><a href="http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/Museum/mau.html">Antonia Maury</a></b>, and <b><a href="http://hoa.aavso.org/posterswan.htm">Henrietta S. Leavitt</a></b>, and produced the <cite><b><a href="http://lyra.colorado.edu/sbo/sboinfo/readingroom/hd.html">Henry Draper Catalogue,</a></b></cite> with objective prism spectra of hundreds of thousands of stars classified according to Cannon’s “Harvard sequence.” He established a station in Peru to make the southern photographs and published the first all-sky photographic map. He and <b><a href="../Vogel/index.html" target="_top">Hermann Carl Vogel</a></b> independently discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He also discovered a new series of spectral lines which turned out to be due to ionized helium. Pickering encouraged amateur astronomers and was a founder of the <b><a href="http://www.aavso.org/aavso/history/">American Association of Variable Star Observers</a></b>.</p>
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<b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Presentation of Bruce medal</font></fONT></b><br>
Cushing, Charles A., <a href="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1908PASP...20...55C"><i>PASP</i> <b>20</b>, 55-63 (1908)</a>.</p>
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<b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Other awards</font></fONT></b><br>
American Academy of Arts & Sciences, <a href="http://www.amacad.org/about/prizes.aspx">Rumford prize</a>, 1891.<br>
Government of Germany, <a href="http://www.pourlemerite.org/peace/peace.php">Order Pour le Merite for Arts and Sciences</a>, 1911.<br>
National Academy of Sciences, <a href="http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_draper">Henry Draper Medal</a>, 1888.<br>
Royal Astronomical Society, <a href="http://www.ras.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=244&Itemid=104">Gold medal</a>, 1886, 1901, presented by <a href="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1901MNRAS..61..293.">E.B. Knobel, <i>MNRAS</i> <b>61</b>, 293-305 (1901)</a>.<br>
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<p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Some offices held</font></fONT></b><br>
<a href="http://www.aaas.org/">American Association for the Advancement of Science</a>, President, 1912.<br>
<a href="http://www.aas.org/">American Astronomical Society</a>, President, 1905-19.<br>
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<b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Biographical materials</font></fONT></b><br>
Plotkin, Howard, <i>Dictionary of Scientific Biography </i><b>10</b>, 599-601.<br>
Plotkin, Howard, “Edward Charles Pickering,” <i>Journal for the History of Astronomy</i> <b>21</b>, 47–58 (1990).<br>
Tenn, Joseph S., “Edward Pickering: The Seventh Bruce Medalist,” <a href="PickeringBio.pdf"><cite>Mercury</cite>  <strong> 20</strong>, 1, 26 (1991)</a>.
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<p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Obituaries</font></fONT></b><br>
American Association of Variable Star Observers, <i>Memorial to Edward Charles Pickering</i> (AAVSO, Norwich, CT, 1920).<br>
Bailey, Solon I., <i>Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Science</i> <b>15</b>, 169-89 (1932).<br>
Bailey, S.I., <a href="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1919ApJ....50..233B"><i>Ap.J.</i> <b>50</b>, 233-44 (1919)</a>.<br>
<a href="../Campbell/index.html">Campbell, W.W. </a>, <a href="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1919PASP...31...73C"><i>PASP</i> <b>31</b>, 73-76 (1919)</a>.<br>
Cannon, Annie J., <i>Popular Astronomy</i> <b>27</b>, 177 (1919).<br>
King, Edward S., <a href="http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1919JRASC..13..165K"><i>JRASC</i> <b>13</b>, 165-73 (1919)</a>.<br>
<a href="../Turner/index.html">Turner, H.H.</a>, <a href="http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1920MNRAS..80..360."><i>MNRAS</i> <b>80</b>, 360-65 (1920)</a>.<br>
<b><a href="http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~pbrosche/persons/obit/obit_p.html">More obituaries</a></b>
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<p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Photos</font></fONT></b><br>
<a href="http://www.aavso.org/vstar/vsots/1101.shtml">American Association of Variable Star Observers, organizational meeting, 1917</a><br>
<a href="http://archives.caltech.edu/search_catalog.cfm?results_file=Detail_View&recsPerPage=1&firstRecToShow=1&search_field=pickering%20edward&entry_type=photo&photo_id=&cat_series=" >Caltech Archives</a><br>
<a href="http://www.aip.org/history/esva/catalog/esva/Pickering_Charles.html">AIP Center for History of Physics</a> (several)<br>
<a href="http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~jshaw/pick.html">Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, “Pickering’s Harem”</a><br>
<a href="http://www.klima-luft.de/steinicke/ngcic/persons/pickering.htm">Steinicke, Wolfgang</a><br>
<a href="http://www.usno.navy.mil/library/photo/aas67.html">U.S. Naval Observatory Library</a></p>
<p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Named after him</font></fONT></b><br>
<a href="http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/">Lunar crater Pickering</a><br>
<a href="http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/">Martian crater Pickering</a><br>
<a href="http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/MPNames.html#P">Minor Planet #784 Pickeringia</a><br>
<a href="http://home.achilles.net/~jtalbot/spectra/ProtoHydrogen.html">Pickering series of spectral lines of ionized helium</a>
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<p><b><font size="+1"><a href="PickeringRefs.html" target="_self">More references</a></font></b></p>
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<center><b><a href="../index.html" target="_top">The Bruce Medalists</a></b></center>
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<td valign="TOP"><font size="-1">Please send comments, additions, corrections, and questions to<br>
<a href=MAILTO:joe.tenn@sonoma.edu> joe.tenn@sonoma.edu</a><br></td>
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<a href="http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/">JST</a></i><br>
<a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html">2007-12-12 </a></td></font>
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