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George Ellery Hale

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"GEORGE ELLERY HALE (1868-), American astronomer, was born at Chicago, Ill., June 29 1868. He studied at the Harvard College Observatory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S. 1890). He was director of the Kenwood Astrophysical Observatory, in Chicago, from 1890 to 1896. From 1892 to 1905 he was at the university of Chicago as associate professor of astrophysics, as professor (from 1897), and as director of the Yerkes Observatory (after 1895). In 1904 he became director of the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory (Cal.) of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He invented the spectroheliograph first used in 1892 for photographing solar prominences and won an international reputation for his solar and stellar spectroscopic work. He was awarded the Janssen medal by the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1894, the Rumford medal by the American Academy in 1902, the Draper medal in 1903, a gold medal by the Royal Astronomical Society in 1904, the Bruce medal by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1916, and the Janssen medal by the Astronomical Society of France in 1917. From 1892 to 1895 he was an editor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and thereafter of The Astrophysical Journal. He was the author of The Study of Stellar Evolution (1908) and Ten Years' Work of a Mountain Observatory (1915), besides numerous papers in the Contributions from the Mount Wilson Observatory and other scientific publications. He was a member of many learned societies at home and abroad.