Born Pasadena, California, USA, 13 September 1912
Died Santa Barbara, California, USA, 29 August 2003
Horace Babcock was the son of Harold Babcock ; the two shared many scientific interests, collaborated on some important studies of the Sun and instrument design, and received several of the same honors (though never together).
Horace Babcock was born in Pasadena, where his father was on the staff of the Mount Wilson Observatory (1908–1948). Babcock attended Caltech as an undergraduate, completing his B.S. in physics in 1934. He obtained a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley in 1938, studying the dynamics of M31 using Lick long-slit spectra. His thesis established the trailing nature of the spiral pattern and considerably extended the earlier studies of Vesto Slipher , Frances Pease , and Ernst Öpik .
Babcock’s spectra showed a large rotation speed for M31 very far from its center, implying a mass and mass-to-luminosity ratio for the galaxy much larger than...
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Selected References
Abell, George O. (1969). “Award of the Bruce Gold Medal to Dr. Horace W. Babcock.” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 81: 179–184.
Babcock, Horace W. (1953). “The Solar Magnetograph.” Astrophysical Journal 118: 387–396.
— (1960). “Stellar Magnetic Fields.” In Stellar Atmospheres, edited by Jesse L. Greenstein, pp. 282–320. Vol. 6 of Stars and Stellar Systems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
— (1960). “The 34-Kilogauss Field of HD 215441.” Astrophysical Journal 132: 521–531.
— (1963). “The Sun’s Magnetic Field.” Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 1: 41–58.
Babcock, Horace W. and Harold D. Babcock (1952). “Mapping the Magnetic Fields of the Sun.” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 64: 282–287.
Lovell, Bernard (1970). “Presidential Addresses on the Society’s Awards: The Gold Medal.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 11: 85–87.
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Shore, S.N. (2014). Babcock, Horace Welcome. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_89
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