Edward Skinner King

Edward Skinner King ( born May 31, 1861 in Liverpool, New York, † September 10, 1931 in Cambridge, Massachusetts ) was an American astronomer.

He graduated in 1887 from Hamilton College and took a job at the Harvard Observatory, where he headed the image photograph and related areas. There he was a pioneer and expert in the field of photometry. In 1912 he noticed that certain types of movies provided better results during the winter months. This observation led to the development of the cold camera in which the operating temperature is lowered to -40 ° C. From 1926 until his death he held the office of Phillips Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University.

His reference book A Manual of Celestial Photography: Principles and Practice for Those Interested In Photographing the Heavens was released in the year he died and 1988 reissued.

Together with Arthur S. King, he is the namesake for the King crater on Earth's Moon.