Edward Charles Pickering

Edward Charles Pickering ( born July 19, 1846 in Boston, † February 3, 1919 in Cambridge, Massachusetts ) was an American astronomer and physicist, brother of William Henry Pickering.

Along with Hermann Karl Vogel Pickering discovered the first binary stars, which could only be identified spectroscopically. He wrote Elements of Physical Manipulations ( 2 vols, 1873-76 ) and developed the eponymous Pickeringsche fraction method, a method for determining the brightness of stars with the naked eye.

His work consisted mainly of the stellar photometry. In 1884 he published the " Harvard Photometry ", 1903 the first photographic star atlas.

He found in 1897 in the light of the star ξ Puppis spectral lines of the He spectrum, which was named after him Pickering series.

He was director of the Harvard College Observatory. Under his supervision, also from 1918, began the publication of the Henry Draper Catalogue.

At the Harvard Observatory he employed many women, including Annie Jump Cannon, Williamina Fleming, Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Antonia Maury. These women, who were known among scientists as " Pickering's Harem", made ​​many important astronomical discoveries.

He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1886 ) and again in 1901 and 1908, the Bruce Medal and the Jules Janssen Award.

The crater Pickering on the Moon is named after him and his brother William Henry Pickering, as is the asteroid ( 784 ) Pickeringia.

The Mars crater Pickering is named after the brothers and the New Zealand rocket engineer William Hayward Pickering ( 1910-2004 ).