Gérard Henri de Vaucouleurs (25 April 1918 – 7 October 1995) was a French

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 ...

Life and career

Born in Paris, he had an early interest in

amateur astronomy Amateur astronomy is a hobby where participants enjoy observing or imaging celestial objects in the sky using the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Even though scientific research may not be their primary goal, some amateur astronomers m ...

and received his undergraduate degree in 1939 at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

in that city. After military service in World War II, he resumed his pursuit of astronomy. He was married to fellow astronomer Antoinette de Vaucouleurs on October 31, 1944, and the couple would frequently collaborate on astronomical research. Fluent in English, he spent 1949–51 in England, 1951–57 in Australia, the latter at

Mount Stromlo Observatory Mount Stromlo Observatory located just outside Canberra, Australia, is part of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University (ANU). History The observatory was established in 1924 as The Commonweal ...

, 1957–58 at

Lowell Observatory Lowell Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States. Lowell Observatory was established in 1894, placing it among the oldest observatories in the United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

and 1958–60 at

Harvard 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 1960 he was appointed to the

University of Texas at Austin 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 ...

, where he spent the rest of his career. He died of a heart attack in his home in Austin at the age of 77. His earliest work had concerned the planet Mars and while at Harvard he used telescope observations from 1909 to 1958 to study the areographic coordinates of features on the surface of Mars. His later work focused on the study of

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

and he co-authored the ''Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies'' with his wife Antoinette (1921-1987), a fellow UT Austin astronomer and lifelong collaborator. His specialty included reanalyzing Hubble and Sandage's galaxy atlas and recomputing the distance measurements utilizing a method of averaging many different kinds of metrics such as luminosity, the diameters of ring galaxies, brightest star clusters, etc., in a method he called "spreading the risks." During the 1950s he promoted the idea that galactic clusters are grouped into superclusters. The '' de Vaucouleurs modified Hubble sequence'' is a widely used variant of the standard

Hubble sequence The Hubble sequence is a morphological classification scheme for galaxies invented by Edwin Hubble in 1926. It is often colloquially known as the Hubble tuning-fork diagram because the shape in which it is traditionally represented resembles a t ...

. De Vaucouleurs was awarded the

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, ...

by 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 ...

in 1988. He was awarded the

Prix Jules Janssen The Prix Jules Janssen is the highest award of the Société astronomique de France (SAF), the French astronomical society. This annual prize is given to a professional French astronomer or to an astronomer of another nationality in recognition ...

of the

Société astronomique de France The Société astronomique de France (SAF; ), the French astronomical society, is a non-profit association in the public interest organized under French law (Association loi de 1901). Founded by astronomer Camille Flammarion in 1887, its purpose ...

(Astronomical Society of France) in the same year. He and his wife and longtime collaborator, Antoinette, together produced 400 research and technical papers, 20 books and 100 articles for laymen.

References

External links

Oral history interview transcript with Gérard de Vaucouleurs on 7 November 1988, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives

Oral history interview transcript with Gérard de Vaucouleurs on 20 November 1991, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives

Oral history interview transcript with Gérard de Vaucouleurs on 23 November 1991, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives

Obituary: Gerard Henri De Vaucouleurs, 1918-1995

* http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/normal_galaxies.html
E. Margaret Burbidge, "Gerard de Vaucouleurs", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2002)

Other resources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaucouleurs, Gerard de 1918 births 1995 deaths University of Paris alumni French emigrants to the United States Harvard University staff University of Texas at Austin faculty Scientists from Paris 20th-century American astronomers 20th-century French astronomers Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences

Life and career

See also

References

Further reading

External links

Other resources