George Ellery Hale

George Ellery Hale ( born June 29, 1868 in Chicago, Illinois, † February 21 1938 in Pasadena ) was an American astronomer. With it, one connects the era of large reflecting telescopes and major advances in solar research and models of stellar evolution. He worked closely with the telescope builder George Willis Ritchey.

Life and work

Hale, born in 1868 in Chicago and coming from a wealthy family, placed in the observation of the solar spectrum determines the splitting of absorption lines ( Zeeman effect ) and showed that the sunspots are sites of strong magnetic fields. Even as a 21 year old he developed as a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1890 (simultaneously with Henri -Alexandre Deslandres ) the Spektroheliografen. This instrument was soon used worldwide to study the sun in narrow spectral ranges.

He studied at MIT, was in 1889/90 at the Observatory of Harvard College, 1893/94 in Berlin. In 1890 he had his own observatory ( Kenwood Astrophysical Observatory) on the family estate in Chicago's Kenwood. 1891 to 1893 he was Professor of Astrophysics at Beloit College in Beloit (Wisconsin ).

Hale was in 1892 appointed to the University of Chicago, where he remained until 1897, associate professor and then to professor in 1905. Then he heard the same year by a new 40-inch lens, he related from the construction of a large observatory. It succeeded Hale, but to find a rich sponsor from Chicago: Charles Yerkes. So the giant refractor with 102 -cm opening in 1897 at the new Yerkes Observatory was the then largest telescope in the world. It is the largest refracting telescope ever built today.

Hale was a very energetic man who still founded more observatories for his research, which were equipped with ever larger telescopes and the latest equipment. In Pasadena he had his own Solar Observatory ( Hale Solar Laboratory). He played a leading role in building the Caltech.

For the construction of a giant telescope mirror Hale started since the year 1927 to advertise. In 1928 he was able to convince the president of the Rockefeller Foundation from this massive investment in science. The reflecting telescope at Mount Palomar was completed in 1947. With a primary mirror of 200 inches (5 meters) to 1975 it was the largest telescope in the world. Even today it is the largest telescope with equatorial mount.

Mount Wilson has a reflecting telescope with a primary mirror of 2.5 meters in diameter, which was built under the direction of George Willis Ritchey. Edwin Hubble was able to demonstrate in 1923 the first individual stars in the Andromeda galaxy, and explore the expansion of the universe. Until the construction of the Palomar telescope this telescope was the world's largest.

Hale had mental problems (relapses of schizophrenia ), which also forced him to give up his directorship at Mount Wilson.

In 1894 he founded the Astrophysical Journal, whose editor, he was from 1895. 1892 to 1895 he was co-editor of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

He was a foreign member of the Academie des Sciences ( 1919) and Fellow of the Royal Society.

Both Hale Observatories on Mount Wilson and Mount Palomar were named in 1970 in his honor.

The lunar crater Hale is named after him and the inventor William Hale. Since 1973, the Mars Crater Hale is named after him. An asteroid (1024 Hale) is named after him.

Awards

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