Edward Charles Pickering

For similarly named people, see Edward Pickering (disambiguation).

Edward Charles Pickering
Born	(1846-07-19)July 19, 1846 Boston, Massachusetts
Died	Cambridge, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Fields	Astronomy
Alma mater	Harvard
Known for	spectroscopic binary stars
Notable awards	Henry Draper Medal (1888) Valz Prize (1888) Bruce Medal (1908) Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1886 and 1901)

Edward Charles Pickering (July 19, 1846 – February 3, 1919) was an American astronomer and physicist as well as the older brother of William Henry Pickering.

Along with Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He wrote Elements of Physical Manipulations (2 vol., 1873–76).

Biography

Pickering attended Boston Latin School, and received his B.S. from Harvard in 1865. Soon after graduating from Harvard, Pickering taught physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Later, he served as director of Harvard College Observatory from 1877 to his death in 1919, where he made great leaps forward in the gathering of stellar spectra through the use of photography.

Pickering and the Harvard Computers, standing in front of Building C at the Harvard College Observatory, 13 May 1913

At Harvard, he recruited over 80 women to work for him, including Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, and Antonia Maury. These women, the Harvard Computers (also described as "Pickering's Harem" by the scientific community at the time), made several important discoveries at HCO. Leavitt's discovery of the period-luminosity relationship for Cepheids, published by Pickering, would prove the foundation for the modern understanding of cosmological distances.

In 1876 he co-founded the Appalachian Mountain Club.

Discoveries

In 1882, Pickering developed a method to photograph the spectra of multiple stars simultaneously by putting a large prism in front of the photographic plate.

He also, along with Williamina Fleming and Annie Jump Cannon designed a stellar classification system based on an alphabetic system for spectral classes that was first known as the Harvard Stellar Classification and became the basis for the Henry Draper Catalog.

Pickering is credited for making the Harvard College Observatory known and respected around the world, and it continues today to be a well-respected observatory and program.

Honors

Awards and honors

• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1867)
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1886 and 1901)
• Valz Prize of the French Academy of Sciences (1888)
• Henry Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences (1888)
• Bruce Medal (1908)

Named after him

• The crater Pickering on the Moon
• The crater Pickering Mars.
• Asteroid 784 Pickeringia

(all jointly named after him and his brother William Henry Pickering)

Publications

• (1873–76) Elements of physical manipulation New York: Hurd & Houghton OCLC 16078533
• (1882) A plan for securing observations of the variable stars Cambridge: J. Wilson and Son OCLC 260332440
• (1886) An investigation in stellar photography Cambridge: J. Wilson and Son OCLC 15790725
• (1891) Preparation and discussion of the Draper catalogue Cambridge: J. Wilson and Son OCLC 3492105
• (1903) Plan for the endowment of astronomical research Cambridge: Astronomical observatory of Harvard College OCLC 30005226

External links

• Works by Edward Charles Pickering at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Edward Charles Pickering at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Edward Charles Pickering — Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
• Women Astronomers at Harvard at the Turn of the Century

Obituaries

• (German) AN 208 (1919) 133/134
• JRASC 13 (1919) 160
• MNRAS 80 (1920) 360
• PASP 31 (1919) 73