George Bassett Clark (February 14, 1827 – December 20, 1891) was an American instrument maker and

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 ...

. Born in

Lowell, Massachusetts Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as of ...

and educated at Phillips Academy, Andover, he was the son of Alvan Clark, part of a family of

refracting telescope A refracting telescope (also called a refractor) is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens (optics), lens as its objective (optics), objective to form an image (also referred to a dioptrics, dioptric telescope). The refracting telescope d ...

makers in the 19th century. In 1846, George Bassett Clark joined his father and brother at the family's telescope works in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

. The firm, Alvan Clark & Sons, made many of the record-breaking refracting instruments, including the still-largest refracting telescope at the

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 ...

, gaining "worldwide fame and distribution", wrote one author on astronomy in 1899. Clark was elected a Fellow of the

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 ...

in 1878.

References

External links

Portraits of George Bassett Clark from the Lick Observatory Records Digital Archive, UC Santa Cruz Library's Digital Collections
1827 births 1891 deaths Phillips Academy alumni American astronomers Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences People from Lowell, Massachusetts Astronomical instrument makers {{US-astronomer-stub

See also

References

External links