At left, (a) is a visible light image of the Visible and Infrared Images of the Horsehead Nebula in Orion. It is now called Barnard’s Star in his honor.įigure 3. In 1916, he discovered the star with the largest proper motion, the second-closest star system to our own (see Analyzing Starlight). He also made measurements of the sizes and features of planets, participated in observations of solar eclipses, and carefully cataloged dark nebulae (see Figure 1). He continued his photographic work, publishing compilations of his images that became classic photographic atlases, and investigating the varieties of nebulae revealed in his photographs. In 1895, Barnard, having had enough of the political battles at Lick, accepted a job at the Yerkes Observatory near Chicago, where he remained until his death in 1923. He had difficulty taking vacations and lived for his work: only serious illness could deter him from making astronomical observations. He was a driven, neurotic man, concerned about his lack of formal training, fearful of being scorned, and afraid that he might somehow slip back into the poverty of his younger days. It was during the course of this work that he began to examine the dark regions among the crowded star lanes of the Galaxy and to realize that they must be vast clouds of obscuring material (rather than “holes” in the distribution of stars).Īstronomer-historian Donald Osterbrock has called Barnard an “observaholic:” his daily mood seemed to depend entirely on how clear the sky promised to be for his night of observing. Now in a position to demand more telescope time, he perfected his photographic techniques and soon began to publish the best images of the Milky Way taken up to that time. (To be fair, Barnard soon tried to do the same for him.) Despite being denied the telescope time that he needed for his photographic work, in 1892, Barnard managed to discover the first new moon found around Jupiter since Galileo’s day, a stunning observational feat that earned him world renown. In 1887, Barnard got a position at the newly founded Lick Observatory, where he soon locked horns with the director, Edward Holden, a blustering administrator who made Barnard’s life miserable. (By the end of his life, Barnard had found 17 comets through diligent observation.) He discovered seven of them between 18, earning enough money to make the payments on his home this “Comet House” later became a local attraction. With the determination that became characteristic of him, Barnard spent every clear night searching for comets. But as it happened, a patent medicine manufacturer offered a $200 prize (a lot of money in those days) for the discovery of any new comet. Married in 1881, Barnard built a house for his family that he could ill afford. In 1883, he obtained a job as an assistant at the Vanderbilt University Observatory, which enabled him at last to take some astronomy courses. He worked as a photographer’s aide for 17 years, studying astronomy on his own. He soon became an assistant to a local photographer, where he learned to love both photography and astronomy, destined to become the dual passions of his life. Barnard is generally credited with showing from his extensive series of nebula photographs that the latter interpretation is the correct one (see the feature box on Edward Emerson Barnard).īorn in 1857 in Nashville, Tennessee, two months after his father died, Edward Barnard (Figure 2) grew up in such poor circumstances that he had to drop out of school at age nine to help support his ailing mother. ![]() The astronomer William Herschel (discoverer of the planet Uranus) thought it was the former, once remarking after seeing one, “Here truly is a hole in heaven!” However, American astronomer E. For a long time, astronomers debated whether these dark regions were empty “tunnels” through which we looked beyond the stars of the Milky Way Galaxy into intergalactic space, or clouds of some dark material that blocked the light of the stars beyond. ![]() ![]() Explain the terms extinction and interstellar reddeningįigure 1 shows a striking example of what is actually a common sight through large telescopes: a dark region on the sky that appears to be nearly empty of stars.Understand the role and importance of infrared observations in studying dust.Describe how we can detect interstellar dust.By the end of this section, you will be able to:
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