Yerkes Observatory
A Treasure of the past
and of the future
Dr. Rhodri Evans
University of Glamorgan
Cardiff University
Summary
• 5 famous astronomers who have worked at Yerkes
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Hale
Hubble
Chandrasekhar
Kuiper
Morgan
• What is the future of Yerkes?
Stonework detail
George Ellery Hale
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George Ellery Hale (1868-1938)
Son of a rich Chicago businessman
Attended MIT (1886-1890)
Invented the spectroheliograph in the
summer of 1889
Hired by U Chicago in 1892 to be the
director of its first Observatory
Left Yerkes in 1904 to establish Mount
Wilson Observatory
In 1908 discovered that sunspots are
areas of intense magnetic field
Built the 60-inch & 100-inch telescopes
Was behind the building of the 200-inch
Also started
– the Astrophysical Journal
– The American Astronomical Society
– Caltech
Edwin P. Hubble
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Did his BSc at Chicago and PhD at
Yerkes
PhD on photographic studies of nebulae
using 24-inch
Went to Mt Wilson in 1919
In 1923 discovered cepheid variables in
M31
– Showed that M31 was outside of Milky
Way
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In 1929 he showed that the Universe was
expanding
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
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Whilst doing his PhD at Cambridge he
developed the theory of White Dwarf
collapse
Came to Yerkes in 1936
Worked on
– stellar structure and evolution
– Dynamical properties of star clusters and
galaxies
– Radiative transfer of energy
– The theory of black holes
– In 1968(?) he left Yerkes to work on campus,
precipitating the shift of the astrophysics
department to Hyde Park
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In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Physics
Gerard Kuiper
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Kuiper came to Yerkes in 1935(?)
He discovered two moons of planets in the
solar system,
– Uranus's moon Miranda and Neptune's moon
Nereid.
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He discovered carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere of Mars and the existence of a
methane-laced atmosphere above Saturn's
moon Titan.
In the 1950s he proposed a reservoir for short
period comets - the Kuiper belt
Kuiper also pioneered airborne infrared
observing using a Convair 990 aircraft in the
1960s.
In the 1960s, Kuiper helped identify landing
sites on the moon for the Apollo program.
William W. Morgan
• Morgan came to Yerkes in the
1926 after studying English at
college
• He developed the Morgan-Keenan
stellar classification system
• In the 1950s he used OB
associations to determine that the
Milky Way galaxy had a spiral
structure
• He invented the UBV system of
magnitudes and colours
• He spent 68 years working at
Yerkes
The Future