Donald Edward Osterbrock (July 13, 1924 – January 11, 2007) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

, best known for his work on

star formation Star formation is the process by which dense regions within molecular clouds in The "medium" is present further soon.-->interstellar space

and on the history of astronomy.

Biography

Osterbrock was born in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. His father was an

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

. He served with the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, making weather observations in the Pacific. He did undergraduate classes in physics at the University of Chicago as part of his weather training. He was educated at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, where he received bachelor's and master's degrees in physics and a PhD in astronomy in 1952. He was a student of

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; ) (19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian-American theoretical physicist who spent his professional life in the United States. He shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for "... ...

while working at

Yerkes Observatory Yerkes Observatory ( ) is an astronomical observatory located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, United States. The observatory was operated by the University of Chicago Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics from its founding in 1897 to 2018. Owne ...

. His work there with

William Wilson Morgan William Wilson Morgan (January 3, 1906 – June 21, 1994) was an American astronomer and astrophysicist. The principal theme in Morgan's work was stellar and galaxy classification. He is also known for helping prove the existence of spiral arms i ...

and

Stewart Sharpless Stewart Sharpless (March 29, 1926 – January 19, 2013) was an American astronomer who carried out fundamental work on the structure of the Milky Way galaxy. As a graduate student at Yerkes Observatory he worked under William Morgan with fellow g ...

showed the existence of the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...

spiral arm Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''post-doctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

, instructor and assistant professor at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

until 1958. He was then appointed assistant professor at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

, received tenure there in 1959, and was promoted to full professor in 1961. He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1960–1961. In 1973 he moved from Madison to the

University of California at Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

, as Professor of

Astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

and

Astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

, and Director of

Lick Observatory The Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of California. It is on the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, United States. The observatory is managed by th ...

, a position he held until 1981. He remained on the faculty at UC Santa Cruz until his retirement in 1993. Thereafter,

Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Professor Osterbrock continued to make daily trips to his office on campus, to work on his research, to keep publishing, and to maintain an active role in the astronomical community. At the time of his death he had authored 12 monographs on astronomy and the history of astronomy, including, in 1989 the influential textbook ''Astrophysics of Gaseous Nebulae and

Active Galactic Nuclei An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with characteristics indicating that the luminosity is not prod ...

,'' and the recently updated and revised 2nd edition (2006) written along with

Gary Ferland Gary Joseph Ferland (born May 10, 1951, in Washington D.C.) is an American astrophysicist. He is a professor of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Kentucky. He joined the University of TexasAstronomy Departmentin 1973 where he rece ...

of the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

. Alongside his more than 150 articles on astronomy and astrophysics, he published 70 historical studies, biographical memoirs, and obituaries of major figures in nineteenth and twentieth century astronomy, and numerous book reviews. Osterbrock's research included work on the nature of ionized gases around hot stars and studying active

galactic nuclei An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with characteristics indicating that the luminosity is not pr ...

black holes A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can def ...

. Osterbrock received lifetime achievement awards from the

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. He was President of the American Astronomical Society from 1988 to 1990. He died following a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...

. He was survived by his wife of 54 years, Irene Hansen (1926-2019), and their son and two daughters.

Honors

*Member,

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

(1966) *Member,

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

(1968) *Member,

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

(1991) *Associate,

Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NGO ...

(1976) *

Henry Norris Russell Lectureship The Henry Norris Russell Lectureship is awarded each year by the American Astronomical Society in recognition of a lifetime of excellence in astronomical research. The idea for the lectureship came from then society President Harlow Shapley in 1945, ...

(1991) * Corresponding member,

Academia Mexicana de Ciencias The Mexican Academy of Sciences ''(Academia Mexicana de Ciencias)'' is a non-profit organization comprising over 1800 distinguished Mexican scientists, attached to various institutions in the country, as well as a number of eminent foreign colle ...

(1998)

Awards

*University of Chicago Alumni Association Professional Achievement Award (1982) *University Center Distinguished Scholar in Physics and Astronomy, Atlanta, Georgia (1990) *Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal, Astronomical Society of the Pacific (1991) *Gold Medal,

Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NGO ...

(1997) *Antoinette de Vancouleurs Memorial Lectureship and Medal,

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

(1994) *Hans Lippershey Medal, Antique Telescope Society (1998) *University of Chicago Alumni Medal (2000) *Leroy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy, Historical Astronomy Division,

(2002)

Named after him

Asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

6107 Osterbrock * Osterbrock Book Prize; the Donald E. Osterbrock Book Prize for Historical Astronomy is awarded biennially in odd-numbered years since 2011

Honorary degrees

D.Sc. Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

(1986) *D.Sc.,

(1992) *D.Sc.,

University of Wisconsin, Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

(1997) *D.Sc.,

Ohio University Ohio University is a Public university, public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confeder ...

(2003) *D.Sc.,

University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,00 ...

(2004)

References

Obituary
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', 27 January 2007
Obituary
''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', 14 March 2007
Obituary
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 29 August 2007
Bruce Medal pagePress release
UC Santa Cruz, January 12, 2007

External links

Lick Observatory page

University of California Observatories page

Photographs of Donald Osterbrock from the UC Santa Cruz Library's Digital CollectionsBiographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
{{DEFAULTSORT:Osterbrock, Donald 1924 births Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 2007 deaths American astronomers University of Chicago alumni University of California, Santa Cruz faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society United States Army soldiers United States Army personnel of World War II Scientists from Cincinnati Members of the American Philosophical Society