Edward Emerson Barnard

Background

Edward Emerson Barnard was born on December 16, 1857, in Nashville, Tennessee. He was the son of Reuben Barnard and Elizabeth Jane Barnard (née Haywood), and had one brother. His father died three months before his birth, so he grew up in an impoverished family.

Education

Barnard had only two months of formal schooling and all his early education came mostly from his mother. From 1883 to 1887 Barnard was associated with Vanderbilt University as both student and instructor. There he benefited from formal training, in a somewhat irregular curriculum dictated by the peculiar combination of his lack of previous schooling and the special requirements necessary for him to develop his astronomical potential. Since this training did not constitute a regular course of studies, he received no degree, although six years after leaving the university, he was given the Doctor of Science in recognition of his many scientific contributions - particularly his brilliant discovery of Jupiter’s fifth satellite - and his earlier studies.

Career

William Barnard was employed at the age of nine in the studio of a Nashville photographer, where he remained for 16 years. His training in photographic processes and his knowledge of lenses were later of great value in his pioneer work in astronomical photography.

Barnard's interest in astronomy dated from 1876, when he read a stray copy of a popular book on astronomy and constructed his first telescope with a one-inch lens from a broken spyglass. Meeting Simon Newcomb the following year persuaded him that to do work in astronomy he must be well grounded in mathematics, so he worked in his spare time to educate himself. During the next few years Barnard continued to work in the photography studio, pursuing his astronomical studies in the evenings. His discovery of a number of unexpected comets led to a fellowship at Vanderbilt University, where he received a doctor of science degree in 1887.

He was then appointed junior astronomer at the recently established Lick Observatory, which had a new 36-inch telescope, then the largest in the world. There he discovered the fifth satellite of Jupiter, followed by the faint and distant sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth. He also began his photography of the Milky Way, securing the first of the beautiful photographs of its intricate structure for which he became famous. Barnard accepted a position at the Yerkes Observatory in 1895, and in 1897 he began observing with the great 40-inch photographic telescope (still the largest refractor in the world) that had been secured through the efforts of President William Harper of the University of Chicago and Edward Everett Hale, the greatest astronomical entrepreneur of the period.

Barnard next began the micrometric triangulation of some of the globular clusters, which he continued for nearly 25 years, hoping to detect motions of the individual stars. The observatory's acquisition in 1904 of the 10-inch Bruce photographic telescope gave added impetus to Barnard's photography of comets and his mapping of the Milky Way. In all, Barnard collected 1400 negatives of comets and nearly 4000 plates of the Milky Way and other star fields. His published papers number more than 900.

Achievements

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  Barnard was the foremost observational astronomer of his time, ranking with Sir William Herschel in the range of his contributions and in the peculiar intuitive genius and native instinct. Barnard`s accomplishments were primarily achieved due to his great talent as an observer, making use of his insatiable curiosity, keen perception, and sound judgment; his vision and his intimate familiarity with the sky are legendary.
  
  Barnard spent 28 years as an astronomer at Yerkes using the giant refractor as well as the 10-inch Bruce wide-field telescope, built specially for him, to measure star positions and to pioneer wide-field photography for studying the structure of the Milky Way. He discovered the star, subsequently named after him, with the largest known proper motion, and numerous dark clouds and globules. His Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way, published posthumously in 1927, identifies 349 dark nebulae north of declination -35° that are still known by their Barnard (B) numbers. Barnard played a prominent role, at the turn of the 20th century, in denouncing the existence of martian canals and insisting that they could be broken down into more diffuse detail.
  
  Throughout his scientific career, Barnard was honored by learned societies and was the recipient of numerous awards and medals, including the Lalande gold medal of the French Academy of Sciences (1892), the Arago gold medal of the French Academy of Sciences (1893), the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1897), the Janssen gold medal of the French Academy of Sciences (1900), the Janssen Prize of the French Astronomical Society (1906), and the Bruce gold medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (1917).
  
  He was vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1898), a foreign associate of the Royal Astronomical Society, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, director of the B. A. Gould Fund of the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society.
  
  In addition, Barnard was thrice awarded the Donohoe comet medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1901 and 1902. Previously he had been awarded this medal for a comet discovery in 1889, but he declined it, pointing out that the comet was a rediscovery of a known comet, d’Arrest’s comet.
  
  On five occasions he received a prize given by H. H. Warner, of Rochester, New York (a manufacturer of patent medicine who endowed the Warner Observatory in Rochester) for each discovery of a new comet by an American observer.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way

    (Edward Emerson Barnard's Photographic Atlas of Selected R...)

    1927
  • Astronomical Photography 1895
  • PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE MILKY WAY And of Comets Made with the Six-Inch Willard Lens and Crocker Telescope During the Years 1892 to 1895 1895
  • On a great nebulous region and on the question of absorbing matter in space and the transparency of the nebulae 1910
  • Photographs of the Milky Way near 15 Monoceros and near [epsilon] Cygni, 1895
  • The gegenschein or zodiacal counterglow 1899
  • Reprints from Astrophysical journal: December 1895 - March 1920 1920

Membership

Barnard was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1898), a foreign associate of the Royal Astronomical Society, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Personality

Barnard’s personal life was marked by great modesty, unselfishness, and tolerance, no doubt engendered by his own struggle with distress and adversity. He was universally respected and loved, for he formed warm and enduring friendships. In his scientific writings he demonstrated the same tolerance and understanding, giving due credit to the work of others, even when he did not agree with them.

Physical Characteristics: In 1914 Barnard was stricken with diabetes and for a year was obliged to curtail his heavy schedule of observing.

Quotes from others about the person

• Barnard`s colleague E. B. Frost, director of Yerkes Observatory for many years, stated: “M.:. Barnard could not bring himself to lose time at the telescope in having a pupil take part in measurements, which he could himself make so much better, and he begrudged the possible loss, in quality, of a photograph if someone less skilled than himself took some part in the guiding.”

Interests

• photography

Connections

Barnard was married in 1881 to Rhoda Calvert of Yorkshire, England. Barnard had no children, and after his wife died in 1921, he became depressed and lonely.

Father:

Reuben Barnard

Mother:

Elizabeth Jane Barnard (née Haywood)

colleague:

Edwin B. Frost

Edwin Frost was an American astronomer, born in Brattleboro, Vermont. Frost joined the staff of Yerkes Observatory in 1898 and became its director in 1905 when George Hale resigned. Frost kept the position until his retirement in 1932. He was the editor of the Astrophysical Journal from 1902 to 1932, known for his careful attention to details. In 1915 he lost the use of his right eye and in 1921, his left. Despite his blindness he continued working for eleven more years until his retirement in 1932.

Frost's research focused on the determination of radial velocity using stellar spectroscopy and spectroscopic binaries. In 1902, he discovered the strange behavior of Beta Cephei, which later became the prototype for Beta Cephei variable stars.

He played a significant role in bringing Otto Struve to the United States, when the latter was living as an impoverished refugee in Turkey after the Russian Revolution. He later supported the appointment of Struve as his successor as director of Yerkes Observatory.

The Lunar crater Frost is named in his honor.

Wife:

Rhoda Calvert

colleague:

Mary Ross Calvert

In 1905, she started work at Yerkes Observatory, as assistant and computer for her uncle, the astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard. She completed Barnard`s significant works after his death. In 1923, when Barnard died, she became curator of the Yerkes photographic plate collection and a high-level assistant, until her retirement in 1946.

associate:

George A. Van Biesbroeck

References

• The Immortal Fire Within: The Life and Work of Edward Emerson Barnard
• Dictionary of scientific biography
  1970