Sherburne Wesley Burnham (December 12, 1838 – March 11, 1921) 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, moons, comets and galaxies – in either obse ...
.
For more than 50 years Burnham spent all his free time observing the heavens, mainly concerning himself with
binary star
A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in w ...
s.
Biography
Sherburne Wesley Burnham was born in
Thetford, Vermont
Thetford is a town in Orange County, Vermont, United States in the Connecticut River Valley. The population was 2,775 at the 2020 census. Villages within the town include East Thetford, North Thetford, Thetford Hill, Thetford Center, Rices Mil ...
. His parents were Roswell O. Burnham and Marinda (née Foote) Burnham.
He graduated from the academy in Thetford, and that was the extent of his schooling. He taught himself shorthand, and by 1858 was in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policie ...
. While in New Orleans, he bought a copy of a popular book ''Geography of the Heavens'', which piqued his interest in astronomy.
After the war, he moved to Chicago and worked as a
court reporter
A court reporter, court stenographer, or shorthand reporter is a person whose occupation is to capture the live testimony in proceedings using a stenographic machine, thereby transforming the proceedings into an official certified transcript ...
for over 20 years. At night Burnham was an amateur astronomer, except for four years (1888–1892) he worked as a professional astronomer at
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 t ...
. He left court reporting in 1902, but remained in Chicago. From 1897–1914 he was an astronomer 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. Owner ...
.
Double star discoveries
During the 1840s it was believed that essentially all the binary stars visible to the instruments then available had been found. Friedrich Struve (catalog abbr. ) and his son
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 ...
(catalog abbr. ) had catalogued a good number of binary stars working at the
Dorpat
Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after the Northern European country's political and financial capital, Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 91,407 (as of 2021). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of ...
and
Pulkovo Pulkovo may refer to:
*Pulkovo Heights marking the southern limit of Saint Petersburg, Russia
*Pulkovo Airport serving Saint Petersburg, Russia
* Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise, a former (until 2006) state airline based in Saint Petersburg, Russia
*Pu ...
observatories, using 23 cm and 38 cm
telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observ ...
s.
From 1872–1877, with his small telescope, Burnham found 451 new double stars, with the help of a European astronomer, baron Dembowski, who measured exact positions and separations of Burnham’s newly discovered binaries.
In 1873–1874, he produced a catalog of
double star
In observational astronomy, a double star or visual double is a pair of stars that appear close to each other as viewed from Earth, especially with the aid of optical telescopes.
This occurs because the pair either forms a binary star (i.e. a ...
s. He became a fellow of the
Royal Astronomical Society
(Whatever shines should be observed)
, predecessor =
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. He continued to identify double stars, and later published the ''General Catalogue of 1,290 Double Stars''. In 1906, he published the ''
Burnham Double Star Catalogue The Burnham Double Star Catalogue (BDS) is a catalogue of double stars within 121° of the celestial North Pole. It was published in two parts by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1906, under the title ''A General Catalogue of Double Stars ...
'', containing 13,665 pairs of stars.
The quality of Burnham's work opened the doors of observatories for him and he had access to more powerful instruments at Lick, Yerkes, and other observatories. He is credited with having discovered 1,340 binary stars.
Burnham discovered the first example of, what would be called a half century later, a
Herbig–Haro object
Herbig–Haro (HH) objects are bright patches of nebulosity associated with newborn stars. They are formed when narrow jets of partially ionised gas ejected by stars collide with nearby clouds of gas and dust at several hundred kilometres per s ...
, called
Burnham's Nebula
T Tauri is a variable star in the constellation Taurus, the prototype of the T Tauri stars. It was discovered in October 1852 by John Russell Hind. T Tauri appears from Earth amongst the Hyades cluster, not far from ε Tauri, but it ...
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awar ...
in 1894. The
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the ...
awarded him the
Lalande Prize
The Lalande Prize (French: ''Prix Lalande'' also known as Lalande Medal) was an award for scientific advances in astronomy, given from 1802 until 1970 by the French Academy of Sciences.
The prize was endowed by astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 1801 ...
for 1904.
The
lunar crater
Lunar craters are impact craters on Earth's Moon. The Moon's surface has many craters, all of which were formed by impacts. The International Astronomical Union currently recognizes 9,137 craters, of which 1,675 have been dated.
History
The wor ...
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.
...
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 origina ...