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Daniel Magnes Popper (1913-08-17--1999-09-09) Daniel Popper was born in Oakland, California. He earned an AB (1934) and Ph.D. (1938) at UCB. He became assistant astronomer/instructor, and founding staff member, at McDonald Observatory (1939--1942). Subsequently, he held an instructorship at Yerkes Observatory (1942--1943). War work at Berkeley Radiation Laboratory intervend (1943--1945) before he resumed duties Yerkes again, progressing to assistant professor (1945--1947). In 1947, he joined the new UCLA astronomy department and retired professor emeritus and research astronomer in 1978. Popper was a guest investigator at both Mount Wilson and Palomar 1949--1978 and spent some sabbatical time at KPNO, but Lick was his first and last love. He held the record for the longest (60+ years) Lick observing career. With Carl Seyfert, in 1940--1941, Popper tackled the measuring the ratio of total-to-selective absorption in the ISM, so colours could be used directly to determine stellar distances (for use in galactic rotation studies). Their value was essentially the modern one, Av = 3E(B-V). He knew how to determine orbits and masses of spectroscopic binaries better than anybody else, attaching generously realistic error bars to his measurements such that much of his work is consistent with more recent redeterminations. Popper pioneered the technique of simultaneoausly exposing 2 orders of a grating and welcomed echelle techniques. A large fraction of stellar astrophysics is built on the foundations of stellar masses as a function of spectral type measured by Popper. Defined RS CVn stars (nearly equal masses, slightly evolved, emission lines). His intended prototype was AR Lac, rather than RS CVn. He was the proverbial gantleman and scholar, who could criticize without crushing, who faced-off a mountain lion and won! Memberships and honors include:
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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); 2018 (in honor of Anna Estelle Glancy & Emma Phoebe Waterman Hass); 2019 (in honor of Virginia Frances Farmer Trimble and Roy Stanley Farmer); 2020 (in honor of Margaret Burbidge); 2021 (in honor of Guido Münch & Lodewijk Woltjer). 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. See also Weber and Trimble, chapter 9 of Janna Levin's (2016) book: Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space. |
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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. |
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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." |
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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. |
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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. |
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