UCO/Lick Observatory

E. Margaret Burbidge

Observational Astronomy Workshop

August 26 - August 28, 2021

Lick Observatory, Mt Hamilton, CA

&

October 9 - October 11, 2020

Remotely from Lick Observatory, Mt Hamilton, CA

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Eleanor Margaret Burbidge (1919-08-12--2020-04-05) Margaret Buridge was one of the most highly-respected observational astronomers of her own --- or any --- generation. She was a pioneer, not only in the research realm, but also in her outspoken advocacy for women in astronomy, education and the development of forefront facilities. Born in London, UK, Eleanor Margaret Burbidge (nee Peachy) recalled her first interest in stars emerging at the age of 4 years, crystallizing further around the age of 12/13. Astronomy formed a major part of her undergraduate degree at University College London (UCL) in the years leading up to WWII. Upon graduation, Burbidge joined the workforce of a computing company, resigning after just one day. During WWII, Burbidge was responsible for the safety and operation of the instruments at the University of London's Mill Hill Observatory and acquired her Ph.D. through spectroscopic studies of Be-type stars (using W. E. Wilson's historic 24-inch reflecting telescope) including the archetype, Gamma Cassiopea (a.k.a. "Margaret's star"). Burbige wrote: "I have never tired of the joy of looking through the slit in the darkened dome and watching the stars." Burbidge lamented the reducing opportunities for students to experience observing from within a telescope enclosure --- a deficit that the Workshop seeks to redress: "I often think about the joys of work in an open dome, under the stars, next to the telescope, joys denied to most younger astronomers and students who must sit in a warm console room, facing a television guiding screen and many complex computer interfaces, well removed from the telescope itself." Applying for postdoctoral opportunities, Burbidge experienced gender discrimination, being denied a Carnegie fellowship at CalTech/Mount Wilson: Women were not allowed to use the telescopes, and Carnegie Fellows were guaranteed the right to apply for observing time on those telescopes: "Standard reasons for not allowing women on the telescope included the fact that there were only male-oriented bathroom facilities on the mountain, and that the telescope technicians would object to operating under directions from a woman." After marriage (1948) and a short spell at L'Observatoire de Haute Provence (1949), France, in 1951 Burbidge crossed the Atlantic aboard the Queen Mary to take-up a position at the University of Chicago, which afforded access to both Yerkes and McDonald observatories, where she acquired B-type star spectra (with W. W. Morgan), confirming the spiral structure of the Milky Way and studied stars exhibiting strong variable magnetic fields, primarily the Cor Caroli system. Between 1953 and 1955, Burbidge spent time in Cambridge, UK where, along with colloborators, the investigations leading the to the landmark publication, coincident with the lauch of Sputnik, entitled Synthesis of the Elements in Stars (1957, Rev Mod Phys, 29, 57) began. Appearing in Reviews of Modern Physics in 1957, the paper by Burbidge, Bubidge, Fowler and Hoyle (and referred to as B²FH) was highly influential to both astrophysics and nuclear physics. In its 100+ pages the authors review the fundamentals of stellar nucleosynthesis (e.g. H-burning, He-burning) and introduce the s-process (slow neutron capture for the interiors of S-type red giants), r-process (rapid neutron capture in supernovae) and p-process (to account for some low-abundance heavy isotopes). Burbidge contiued her observational career, eventually spending time at CalTech, Pasadena (accessing Mount Wilson and Palomar facilities) in 1955 and 1956. Burbidge returned to Chicago between 1957 and 1962, once again making use of Yerkes and McDonald Observatories --- including a lucky escape one night at the McDonald 82-inch telescope: "I stepped over the edge of the (elevating, Cassegrain) floor and fell some 10 feet down to the main floor, carrying the control paddle with me. Completely winded, but with no broken bones (thanks to the padding of heavy winter clothing), I could not draw breath to tell ... that I was alive and conscious." "The eagerness of the most active and excited astronomers can still lead to peril." These comments reflect another objective of the Workshop: Emphasizing the hazards of working at observatories and best practices to adopt. In the early 1960s, Burbidge joined the UCSD faculty and commenced observing with Lick observatory facilities. She describes her experience of observing at the prime focus of the 120-inch telescope thus: "To ride with the telescope in that cage was an experience I wish I could share with today's generation of young astronomers ... one could look out at the spectacular vision of the heavens" Her interests had expanded to include discordant redshifts and the emerging field of QSO studies. The result was a another major paper On Relativistic Astrophysics (1964, ApJ, 139, 909) published in the Astrophysical Journal by Hoyle, Fowler, Burbidge and Burbidge in 1964. In 1971, Burbidge declined the American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Annie Jump Cannon prize, claiming it to be discriminatory. The next year, she was appointed the first female Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory --- an appointment that had for 300 years been accompanied by appointment as Astronomer Royal. In Burbidge's case, the title was never conferred. Her Directorship contributed to the creation of the Anglo Australian Telescope and the establishment of UK observatories in La Palma in the Spanish Canary Islands. Later, she served on Space Telescope science committees and, as first director of UCSD Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, oversaw the development of the Hubble Space Telescope's Faint Object Spectrograph. Serving terms as President of both the AAS and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Burbidge advocated for education and inclusivity on the national stage. Among her many honors are Fellowship of the Royal Society, Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the AAS Warner Prize, the ASP Bruce medal, The National Medal of Science and the RAS Gold Medal. Her passion for the subject is revealed in the following quotation: "...it was almost sinful to be enjoying astronomy so much..." Recommended video (14:00) Virginia Trimble on Margaret Burbidge (2020-07-10): https://www.youtube.com/embed/WaGzYrFgNYo?start=1674&end=2480 Watcher of the Skies by E. Margaret Burbidge (1994 Ann. Rev. Astron. Astropys., 32, 1): https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.aa.32.090194.000245 AIP Oral History (1978-07-13): https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/25487 Video (02:00) Margaret Burbidge (Women's Museum of California, 2010-08-02): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu126S7iRBg Video (09:00) Margaret Burbidge 100th Birthday (UCSD, 2019-10-17): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afie3P5hwNg Video (09:53): Margaret and Geoffry Burbidge (BBC, The Cosmologists 1963): https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/geoffrey_margaret_burbidge_cosmologists/zn9xmfr
Virginia Trimble Virginia Trimble is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UC Irvine and the oldest member of the department still on active duty. Virginia sponsored the Observational Astronomy Workshops in: 2013 & 2014 (in honor of Mary Lea & C. Donald Shane); 2015 (in honor of Rudolph L. Minkowski); 2016 (in honor of George H. Herbig); 2017 (in honor of Robert P. Kraft) and 2018 (in honor of Anna Estelle Glancy and Emma Phoebe Waterman Hass). Virginia is a graduate of Hollywood High School, UCLA, and Caltech (PhD 1968) and holds an honorary M.A. degree from the University of Cambridge (UK) and dottora honoris causa from the University of Valencia (Spain). She has been involved in governance in AAS, APS, IAU, IUPAP, PBK, Sigma Xi, ASP and some other organizations and is currently interested in the structure and evolution of stars, galaxies, and the universe, and of the communities of scientists who study them. As a student at CalTech, Trimble modelled for Richard P. Feynman's artwork. For 16 years, Trimble read every astronomical paper published in 23 journals. Preceded by Vera Rubin, Trimble was the second woman to be granted research time with the 200-inch Hale telescope on Palomar mountain. Since the 1960s, as the spouse of gravitational wave astronomy pioneer Joseph Weber, Virginia has been integral to the development and fruition of this major new field, as acknowleged during the 2016-02-11 NSF press conference announcing the first direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO instrument.
Elinor Gates Elinor is a staff astronomer at Lick Observatory specializing in laser guide star adaptive optics and near infrared camera instrumentation and observations. She received her Ph.D. in Physics/Astronomy from the University of New Mexico in 1998. Her current research interests are studying quasars and their host galaxies.
Paul Lynam Paul is a staff astronomer at Lick Observatory. An amateur astronomer since childhood, after UK-based undergraduate studies, master's research and a Ph.D. in astrophysics (2000), he spent three years at the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE, Germany). Having attended research observatories worldwide, he then joined the European Southern Observatory (ESO, Germany) and two years later, relocated to Chile, supporting operations of the Very Large Telescope (VLT). He continued as a VLT operations astronomer until late 2010. His research includes giant galaxies, clusters of galaxies, large-scale structure and "cosmic flows."
Jon Rees Jon is a staff astronomer at Lick Observatory. He received a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Exeter in 2016, focussed on observations of young star clusters. He completed a joint postdoc position at the University of Arizona/UC San Diego, followed by a stint as observatory manager at New Mexico State University before joining Lick. His research interests cover the evolution of young stars, low-mass stars in globular clusters, and brown dwarfs.
Patrick Maloney Pat Maloney has been actively involved with Astronomy since he ground an 8-inch mirror and built his first telescope as a high school freshman. He has operated telescopes for public viewing programs at various colleges and universities. He currently teaches astronomy labs at Santa Clara University. For many years, Pat has also operated the 36-inch and 40-inch telescopes for Lick Observatory’s summer evening programs.