George Ellery Hale
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1908
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1915
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1922
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1924
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1926
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1931
George Ellery Hale was born on June 29, 1868 in Chicago, Illinois to William Ellery Hale and Mary Browne. His father acquired a considerable fortune manufacturing and installing passenger elevators during the reconstruction of Chicago, which had been destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
George Ellery Hale graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1890, doing research work at the Harvard College observatory during his senior year. He continued research at the University of Berlin in 1893-1894.
Hale organized the Kenwood observatory in Chicago in 1888-1891. It was during this period that he invented the spectroheliograph (an instrument for photographing the sun using only a particular wavelength of light).
In 1892 he became associate professor (later professor) of astrophysics at the University of Chicago, and in 1895 he organized and became director of the university's Yerkes observatory at Williams Bay, Wis. Hale held this position until 1904, during which period he was responsible for building the 40-inch refracting telescope that is still the largest of its kind in the world.
From 1904 to 1923 Hale was director (and organizer) of the Mount Wilson observatory in California for the Carnegie Institution in Washington, and it was at this time that the 60-inch and 100-inch stellar telescopes, both of the reflecting type, were built through his efforts. His initiative and drive were responsible, also, for securing funds from the Rockefeller Foundation for the construction by the California Institute of Technology of the 200-inch reflecting telescope at Palomar, California, called the "Hale telescope" in his honor.
He assisted also in organizing the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino, California, and served as a trustee.
The American astronomer George Ellery Hale is best known for his original research in solar and stellar spectrography, particularly for his discovery of magnetic fields in sun spots and for the development of great telescopes, including the 200-inch Palomar instrument.
Hale not only contributed to astronomy by building four of the world’s largest telescopes, he also founded an astronomical society, started the Astrophysical Journal, and was the first person to be officially called an astrophysicist.
George Ellery Hale was honored for his contributions to the development of astrophysics. Among the honors were: the 1894 Janssen Medal from the Paris Academy of Sciences, the 1902 Benjamin Count Rumford Medal from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the 1904 Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, the 1904 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the 1916 Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the 1920 Galileo Medal from the University of Florence, the 1921 Actonian Prize from the Royal Institution of London, the 1926 Elliott Cresson Medal from The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, the 1926 Arthur Noble Medal from the City of Pasadena, the 1927 Franklin Gold Medal from The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, the 1932 Sir Godfrey Copley Medal from the Royal Society of Great Britain, the 1935 Frederic Ives Medal from the Optical Society of America.
George Ellery Hale was married to Evelina Conklin, and on their honeymoon journey they ventured west.
