Papers, etc.

Papers from his directorship of the Mt. Wilson & Palomar Observatories are at the Huntington Library. Excellent introduction. 28,000 items in 89 boxes. The AIP Center for History of Physics has oral history interviews of Horace Babcock and many of his colleagues, as well as an institutional history of Mt. Wilson observatory based on a 1948 talk by H.W. Babcock. There is an audiotape of a 1978 oral history interview at Caltech Archives.

Other References: Historical

Babcock, Horace W., “Diffraction Gratings at the Mount Wilson Observatory,” Physics Today 39, 7, 34-42 (1986) or Vistas in Astronomy 29, 153 (1986).

Howard, R., “Eight Decades of Solar Research at Mt. Wilson,” Solar Physics 100, 171-187 (1985).

Hufbauer, Karl, Exploring the Sun: Solar Science Since Galileo (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, 1991).

Irwin, John, “The Case of the Southern Skies,” Griffith Observer 56, 7, 2 (July 1992).

Sandage, Allan, Centennial History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Vol. 1, The Mount Wilson Observatory: Breaking the Code of Cosmic Evolution (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 2004).

Search ADS for works about Babcock

Other References:Scientific

Babcock, Horace W., “The Paschen Series of Hydrogen Lines in the Spectrum of the Solar Chromosphere,” PASP 44, 323-24 (1932).

Babcock, Harold D. & Horace W. Babcock, “Some New Features of the Solar Spectrum,” PASP 46, 132-33 (1934).

Babcock, Horace W., “Recent Observations of Solar Chromospheric and Disk Spectra in the Infra-Red,” PASP 47, 321 (1935).

Babcock, Horace W., “Spectrographic Observations of the Rotation of the Andromeda Nebula,” PASP 50, 174-75 (1938).

Babcock, Horace W., “The Rotation of the Andromeda Nebula,” Lick Obs. Bull. 498, 41-51 (1939).

Babcock, Horace W., “Radiations of the Night Sky Photographed with a Grating,” PASP 51, 46-50 (1939).

Keenan, Philip C. & Horace W. Babcock, “Interstellar Absorption Near the North Pole of Rotation,” Ap.J. 93, 64-69 (1941).

Swings, P., C.T. Elvey, & H.W. Babcock, “The Spectrum of Comet Cunningham, 1940C,” Ap.J. 94, 320-43 (1941).

Babcock, H.W., “Development of the Coronaviser,” Ap.J. 96, 242-53 (1942).

Babcock, Horace W., “Remarks on Stellar Magnetism,” PASP 59, 112-24 (1947).

Babcock, H.W., “Zeeman Effect in Stellar Spectra,” Ap.J. 105, 105-19 (1947) [reprinted in Selected Papers on Instrumentation in Astronomy ed. by William Livingston & Brian J. Thompson (SPIE Optical Engineering Press, Bellingham, WA, 1993), p. 358ff].

Babcock, Horace W., “Magnetic Fields of Astronomical Bodies,” Phys. Rev. 72, 83 (1947).

Babcock, Horace W., “The Reversing Magnetic Field of BD–18°3789,” PASP 59, 260-61 (1947).

Babcock, Horace W., “An Automatic Guider for Astronomical Telescopes,” Rev. Sci. Instr. 18, 854-55 (1947).

Babcock, Horace W., “Test for a Magnetic Field in the White Dwarf 40 Eridani B,” PASP 60, 368-70 (1948) [reprinted in the Centennial Edition, PASP 100, 1299-1301 (1988), followed by a modern review by James Liebert, 1301-05.

Babcock, Horace W., “A Photoelectric Guider for Astronomical Telescopes,” Ap.J. 107, 73-77 (1948).

Babcock, Horace W., “The Magnetic Field of g Equulei,” Ap.J. 108, 191-200 (1948).

Babcock, Horace W., “Magnetic Intensification of Stellar Absorption Lines,” Ap.J. 110, 126-42 (1949).

Babcock, Horace W., “The Magnetically Variable Star HD 125248,” Ap.J. 114, 1-36 (1951).

Babcock, Harold D. & Horace W. Babcock, “The Ruling of Diffraction Gratings at the Mount Wilson Observatory,” Journal of the Optical Society of America 41, 776-86 (1951).

Babcock, Horace W. & Harold D. Babcock, “Mapping the Magnetic Fields of the Sun,” PASP 64, 282-87 (1952).

Babcock, Horace W. & Sylvia Burd, “The Variable Magnetic Field of α² Canum Venaticorum.,” Ap.J. 116, 8-17 (1952).

Babcock, H.W., “The Possibility of Compensating Astronomical Seeing,” PASP 65, 229-36 (1953). [The first paper on adaptive optics.]

Babcock, Horace W., “The Solar Magnetograph,” Ap.J. 118, 387-96 (1953) [reprinted in the centennial edition Ap.J. 525, 525-36 (1999) with a modern commentary by William Livingston and also in Selected Papers on Instrumentation in Astronomy ed. by William Livingston & Brian J. Thompson (SPIE Optical Engineering Press, Bellingham, WA, 1993), p. 373].

Babcock, H.W. & Cowling, T. G., “General Magnetic Fields in the Sun and Stars (Report on Progress of Astronomy),” MNRAS 113, 357-81 (1953).

Babcock, H.W. & H.D. Babcock, “The Sun’s Magnetic Field, 1952-1954,” Ap. J. 121, 349-66 (1955).

Simpson, J.A., H.W. Babcock, & H.D. Babcock, “Association of a ‘Unipolar’ Magnetic Region on the Sun with Changes of Primary Cosmic-Ray Intensity,” Phys. Rev. 98, 1402-06 (1955).

Babcock, Horace W., “Stellar Magnetic Fields,” in Bo Lehnert, ed., Electromagnetic Phenomena in Cosmical Physics, Proceedings from IAU Symposium no. 6 (Cambridge University Press, 1958), pp. 161-65.

Babcock, H.W. & H.D. Babcock, , “Photospheric Magnetic Fields,” in Bo Lehnert, ed., Electromagnetic Phenomena in Cosmical Physics, Proceedings from IAU Symposium no. 6 (Cambridge University Press, 1958), pp. 239-47.

Babcock, Horace W., “A Catalog of Magnetic Stars,” Ap.J. Supp. 3, 141- 210 (1958).

Babcock, Horace W., “Magnetic Fields of the A-Type Stars,” Ap.J. 128, 228-58 (1958).

Howard, Robert & Horace W. Babcock, “Magnetic Fields Associated with the Solar Flare of July 16, 1959,” Ap.J. 132, 218-20 (1960).

Babcock, Horace W., “The 34-kilogauss Magnetic Field of HD 215441,” Ap.J. 128, 521-31 (1960).

Babcock, H.W., “Stellar Magnetic Fields,” in Jesse L. Greenstein, ed., Stellar Atmospheres (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960), p.282ff.

Babcock, H.W., “The Topology of the Sun’s Magnetic Field and the 22-Year Cycle,” Ap.J. 133, 572-87 (1961).

Babcock, Horace W., “Control of a Ruling Engine by a Modulated Interferometer,” Applied Optics 1, 415-20 (1962).

Babcock, H.W., “Instrumental Recording of Astronomical Seeing,” PASP 75, 1-8 (1963).

Babcock, H.W., “The Sun’s Magnetic Field,” Ann. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 1, 41-58 (1963).

Babcock, Horace W., “The Zeeman Effect in Astrophysics,” Physica 33, 102-21 (1967).

Babcock, H.W., “Air-support Concept for a Large Telescope,” Applied Optics 24, 1248-50 (1985).

Babcock, Horace W., “Adaptive Optics Revisited,” Science 249, 253-57 (1990).

Babcock, H.W., “Optical Gyroscopes Applied to Telescopes,” PASP 103, 468-69 (1991).

Babcock, H.W., “Adaptive Optics in Perspective,” Bull. Am. Astr. Soc. 24, 821 (1992) [abstract of Hale Prize lecture].

Hardy, John W., Adaptive Optics for Astronomical Telescopes (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1998).

Other Works: Popularizations, History, etc.

Babcock, Horace W., “Optical Astronomy in Perspective,” Astronomical Society of the Pacific Leaflets 10, 89-96 (1967) [Leaflet #462, excerpted from Science 156, 1317-22 (1967).