Milton L. Humason

Milton Lasell (also: La Salle ) Humason ( born August 19, 1891 in Dodge Center, Minnesota, † June 18, 1972 in Mendocino, California ) was an American astronomer. With his work on the Mt.Wilson Observatory he was instrumental in the discovery of the expansion of the universe.

From the self-taught for astronomers

At 14, Milton Humason left school and went to live in the mountains before, he had met at a summer camp on Mount Wilson. He earned his living as a mule driver. As, the Mount Wilson Observatory was built on the mountain, on the no road led up and had to be transported up construction material, equipment and food, he was hired there with his flock for load carrying.

During this time he met the daughter of a technical employee of the observatory and married her 1911th The engineer did not think much of the relationship with the Humason poorly educated, but took advantage of every opportunity to find work at the observatory and also worked as a Electricians and porter. As a new caretaker was sought, he applied for and got the job. Then awoke in him soon the interest in telescopes. One day, when suddenly a night assistant failed to illness, Humason was used because of its observational skill and its reliability for it.

Exploration of the spiral nebulae

After some time, he even became assistant with permanent employment; the then Director George Hale recognized his exceptional abilities and took him in 1919, despite his early school leaving in the circle of academic staff on. As a professional astronomer to Humason soon made a reputation as a conscientious observer, particularly in the preparation of accurate Himmelsaufnahmenn and spectrograms.

Dating from around 1920, when as the Andromeda Nebula still faced two astronomical schools in the question of the elliptical nebula - whether we are dealing with intra- galactic objects or to own galaxies like the Milky Way - is oral history narrated that Humason of Harlow Shapley for further investigation on Cepheids got passed photographic plates, among other things, with illustrations of the Andromeda nebula on which he marked as individual points in the interior of the nebula, which he held for stars. Shapley was deeply convinced that it is the fog is only a cloud of gas, not a collection of stars, and wiped the marks with his fingers and ugly words away. Had Shapley its employees taken more seriously at that time, the nature of the Andromeda galaxy would have been may not be detected until four years later by Edwin Hubble.

Humasons investigations as Hubble's assistant played an important role in the development of cosmology, particularly with regard to the discovery of the expansion of the universe and the determination of the Hubble constant. With the 2.5 - meter mirror, he created numerous spectral recordings of galaxies, which required despite the bright telescope very long exposure times of often up to several nights.

Officially moved Humason 1957 from the research back, but discovered in 1961 the comet C/1961 R1 ( Humason ). He almost received as a discoverer of the distant planet Pluto in the history of astronomy, 11 years before Clyde Tombaugh: he took the celestial body on though, but due to an error of the photographic plate of this portion was not accurately represented.

The lunar crater Humason and the asteroid ( 2070 ) Humason were named after Milton Humason.