Frank Schlesinger (May 11, 1871 – July 10, 1943) was an American astronomer. His work concentrated on using photographic plates rather than direct visual studies for astronomical research.
Biography
Schlesinger was born in New York City and attended public schools there.[1] He graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1890. He then worked as a surveyor, becoming a special student in astronomy at Columbia in 1894. In 1896, he received a fellowship which enabled him to study full-time,[1] and he received a PhD in 1898. After his graduation, he spent the summer at Yerkes Observatory as a volunteer assisting director George Ellery Hale.[2]
Ukiah Latitude Observatory and house where Schlesinger worked and lived
He was an observer in charge of the International Latitude Observatory, Ukiah, California, in 1898. From 1899 to 1903, he was an astronomer at Yerkes, where he pioneered the use of photographic methods to determine stellar parallaxes. He was director of Allegheny Observatory from 1903 to 1920 and Yale University Observatory from 1920 to 1941.[3]
At Yale he worked extensively with Ida Barney.[4] He compiled and published the Yale Bright Star Catalogue. The first publication of the results of this work started in 1925 (Transactions of the Yale University Observatory, v. 4) and the work concluded in the 1980s.[1] He made major contributions to astrometry. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society (1912), the National Academy of Sciences (1916) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as president of the American Astronomical Society (1919–1922), and the International Astronomical Union (1932–1935).[1][2]
Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest "The name is so difficult for those who do not speak German that I am usually called sles'in-jer, to rhyme with messenger. It is, of course, of German origin and means 'a native of Schlesien' or Silesia. In that language the pronunciation is shlayzinger, to rhyme with singer."[5]
Awards and honors
Valz Prize of the French Academy of Sciences (1926)[6]
He married Eva Hirsch in 1900 while in Ukiah. They had one child, Frank Wagner Schlesinger, who later directed planetariums in Philadelphia and Chicago. His wife died in 1928, and in 1929 he married Mrs. Katherine Bell (Rawling) Wilcox.[2]
Published works
Schlesinger at the Fourth Conference International Union for Cooperation in Solar Research at Mount Wilson Observatory, 1910Barney, Ida; Schlesinger, Frank (1938). "An effect of a star's color upon its apparent photographic position". Astronomical Journal. 47: 86. Bibcode:1938AJ.....47...86B. doi:10.1086/105478.
^ abcdPeggy Aldrich Kidwell (1999). "Schlesinger, Frank". American National Biography (online ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1301468. (subscription required)
^ abcPeter van de Kamp (1973). "Schlesinger, Frank". Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. Supplement Three 1941–1945. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Schlesinger, Frank" . Encyclopedia Americana.
Further reading
Hockey, Thomas (2009). Frank Schleisinger. Springer Publishing. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. Retrieved August 22, 2012. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(subscription required)
