John Adelbert Parkhurst (September 24, 1861 – March 1, 1925) was an American

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 ...

. He was born in

Dixon, Illinois Dixon is a city and the county seat of Lee County, Illinois, United States. The population was 15,733 as of the 2010 census, down from 15,941 in 2000. The city is named after founder John Dixon, who operated a rope ferry service across the R ...

, and attended the public schools in Marengo, IL and Wheaton College. He then attended

Rose Polytechnic Institute A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

Terre Haute, Indiana Terre Haute ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, about 5 miles east of the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 60,785 and its metropolitan area had a ...

, earning a

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in 1886. For the following two years he taught mathematics at the same school. He was the son of Sanford Britton Parkhurst and Jane Clarissa Hubbard. Source: George Parkhurst Increasings by Peter G. Parkhurst, p. 402. In 1888 he married Anna Greenleaf. He returned to

Marengo, Illinois Marengo is a city in McHenry County, Illinois, United States on the Kishwaukee River. It lies approximately 60 miles west northwest of Chicago. Per the 2020 census, the population was 7,568. Geography Marengo is located at . The north edge o ...

where he kept a small, private observatory that he used primarily for variable star observation.

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 ...

was built nearby in 1897, and in 1898 he joined the staff as a volunteer research assistant. By 1900 he was appointed as an assistant. He remained on the staff for 25 years, later becoming an associate professor 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 ...

, specializing in practical astronomy. His most important work was in the specialty of

photometry Photometry can refer to: * Photometry (optics), the science of measurement of visible light in terms of its perceived brightness to human vision * Photometry (astronomy), the measurement of the flux or intensity of an astronomical object's electrom ...

. He also participated in three eclipse expeditions, but only enjoyed clear seeing conditions on the last (1925). During his career he published about 100 papers on astronomy, both before and during his time at Yerkes. In 1905 he was elected a fellow of the

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

. On February 27, 1925, he suffered a

cerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...

and died a few days later at his home in

Williams Bay Williams Bay is a village in Walworth County, Wisconsin, United States. It is one of three municipalities on Geneva Lake. The population was 2,564 at the 2010 census. History The village was named for Captain Israel Williams of Massachusett ...

. He was survived by his wife, Anna. The crater Parkhurst on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

is named after him. Parkhurst Place in Williams Bay is also named for him. This street leads into the east side of

and wraps around into the South Lawn. Parkhurst Place is where many noteworthy astronomers and astronomy educators of the 20th Century lived including

Subramanyan 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 ".. ...

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 ...

Otto Struve Otto Struve (August 12, 1897 – April 6, 1963) was a Russian-American astronomer of Baltic German origins. In Russian, his name is sometimes given as Otto Lyudvigovich Struve (Отто Людвигович Струве); however, he spent most o ...

, Franklin E. Roach, and

George Ellery Hale George Ellery Hale (June 29, 1868 – February 21, 1938) was an American solar astronomer, best known for his discovery of magnetic fields in sunspots, and as the leader or key figure in the planning or construction of several world-lea ...

References

* ''

Dictionary of Scientific Biography The ''Dictionary of Scientific Biography'' is a scholarly reference work that was published from 1970 through 1980 by publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, with main editor the science historian Charles Gillispie, from Princeton University. It consi ...

''. Vol. 10. New York 1975, p. 320-321. * "Obituary Notices: Fellows:- Parkhurst, John A",

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ''Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society'' (MNRAS) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research in astronomy and astrophysics. It has been in continuous existence since 1827 and publishes letters and papers reporting orig ...

, Vol. 86, 1926, p. 185-186

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parkhurst, John Adelbert 1861 births 1925 deaths American astronomers