Sherburne Wesley Burnham (December 12, 1838 – March 11, 1921) was an American astronomer. Events 627 - Battle of Nineveh: A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeats Emperor Khosrau II 's Persian Year 1838 ( MDCCCXXXVIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common Events 1425 BC - Thutmose III, Pharaoh of Egypt, dies (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th Dynasty Year 1921 ( MCMXXI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1921 calendar of the Gregorian calendar Historically Astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky while Astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena
He worked at Yerkes Observatory. Yerkes Observatory which calls itself "the birthplace of modern astrophysics" is an astronomical observatory operated by the University of Chicago in All his working life, he served during the day as a court reporter and was an amateur astronomer, except for four years as a full-time astronomer at Lick Observatory. A court reporter, stenotype reporter or stenographer is a person whose occupation is to transcribe spoken or recorded speech into written The Lick Observatory is an astronomical Observatory, owned and operated by the University of California.
He served as a military stenographer in the Union Army in the Civil War. Causes of the war See also Origins of the American Civil War, Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War The coexistence of a slave-owning South In 1873 – 1874, he produced a catalog of double stars. Year 1874 ( MDCCCLXXIV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Double Star is a Science fiction Novel by Robert A Heinlein, first serialized in Astounding Science Fiction He became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS is a Learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research He continued to identify double stars and later published the General Catalogue of 1290 Double Stars. He later increased this number to 13,665 double stars.
For more than fifty years he spent all his free time observing the heavens, principally concerning himself with binary stars. A binary star is a Star system consisting of two Stars orbiting around their Center of mass. Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve and Otto Wilhelm von Struve had catalogued a good number of binary stars working at the Observatories of Dorpat and Pulkovo and using 23- and 38-cm telescopes. Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (Vasily Yakovlevich Struve ( April 15, 1793 &ndash November 23, 1864 ( Julian calendar Not to be confused with his grandson Otto Struve (1897&ndash1963 Otto Wilhelm von Struve ( May 7 1819 ( Julian The Tartu Observatory is the largest astronomical Observatory in Estonia. The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory (Пу́лковская Астрономи́ческая обсервато́рия the principal Astronomical observatory of the A telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects and the collection of Electromagnetic radiation. During the 1840s it was believed that essentially all the binary stars visible to the instruments of the day had been discovered. Events and trends Technology First use of General anesthesia in an operation by Crawford Long. Burnham, with his 15-cm instrument, found 451 new ones from 1872 to 1877. The quality of his work opened the doors of observatories for him and he had access to more powerful instruments at Lick, Yerkes and other observatories. The Lick Observatory is an astronomical Observatory, owned and operated by the University of California. Yerkes Observatory which calls itself "the birthplace of modern astrophysics" is an astronomical observatory operated by the University of Chicago in He is credited with having discovered 1340 binary stars.
Burnham discovered the first example of, what would be called a-half century later, a Herbig-Haro object: Burnham's Nebula (now labeled as HH255). Herbig-Haro objects are small patches of nebulosity associated with newly-born Stars and are formed when Gas ejected by young Stars collides
He received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1894. The Gold Medal is the highest award of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The lunar crater Burnham and asteroid 834 Burnhamia were named in his honour. This is a list of craters on the Moon. The large majority of these features are Impact craters The crater nomenclature is governed by the International Burnham is a small crater located to the southeast of the crater Albategnius, in a relatively smooth area of the lunar surface Asteroids, sometimes called Minor planets or planetoids', are bodies—primarily of the inner Solar System —that are smaller than planets but 834 Burnhamia
External links
- Biography
- Note on Hind's Variable Nebula in Taurus, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 51, p. 94 (1890)
- Double star observations made with the thirty-six-inch and twelve-inch refractors of the Lick observatory, from August, 1888, to June, 1892, Publications of the Lick Observatory, Vol. 2, p. 175 (1894)
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