Frank Scott Hogg (July 26, 1904 – January 1, 1951) was a Canadian astronomer. Hogg was born in Preston,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

to Dr. James Scott Hogg and Ida Barberon. After earning an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto, Hogg received the second doctorate in astronomy awarded at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1929 where he pioneered in the study of

spectrophotometry Spectrophotometry is a branch of electromagnetic spectroscopy concerned with the quantitative measurement of the reflection or transmission properties of a material as a function of wavelength. Spectrophotometry uses photometers, known as spec ...

of stars and of spectra of

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

s. His supervisor there was

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; – ) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclus ...

. During World War II, he developed a two-star

sextant A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of celes ...

for air navigation. He was the head of the Department of Astronomy at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

and director of the

David Dunlap Observatory The David Dunlap Observatory (DDO) is an astronomical observatory site in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. Established in 1935, it was owned and operated by the University of Toronto until 2008. It was then acquired by the city of Richmond Hill, ...

from 1946 until his death. During this time he pursued the observatory's major research program to study the motions of faint stars in the line of sight. He was married to fellow astronomer

Helen Sawyer Hogg Helen Battles Sawyer Hogg (August 1, 1905 – January 28, 1993) was an American-Canadian astronomer who pioneered research into globular clusters and variable stars. She was the first female president of several astronomical organizations and a ...

from 1930 until his death from a heart attack in 1951. The crater Hogg on the moon is co-named for him and

Arthur Robert Hogg Arthur Robert Hogg (25 November 1903 – 31 March 1966) was an Australian physicist and astronomer. He was born in Melbourne, Victoria, was educated at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and at the University of Melbourne where he earne ...

Notes

External links

Frank Scott Hogg archival papers
held at th
University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services
1904 births 1951 deaths 20th-century Canadian astronomers University of Toronto alumni Harvard University alumni People from Cambridge, Ontario Academic staff of the University of Toronto Canadian people of Scottish descent {{Canada-scientist-stub