Carl Keenan Seyfert

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Carl Keenan Seyfert (born February 11, 1911 in Cleveland , Ohio , † June 13, 1960 in Nashville ) was an American astronomer.

Carl Seyfert was born in 1911 in Cleveland , Ohio , the son of a pharmacist . After finishing school, he began studying medicine at Harvard University in 1936 . Soon, however, he switched to astronomy , where he was awarded his bachelor's , master's (1933) and finally, in 1936, a doctorate in physics . His dissertation dealt with studies of the more distant galaxies (actually Studies of the External Galaxies ) and focused on the colors and sizes of galaxies.

In 1935 he married the astronomer Muriel E. Mussells, who, as Muriel Mussels Seyfert, discovered new planetary nebulae in the Milky Way . Their marriage resulted in the two children Carl Keenan Jun. And Gail Carol Seyfert.

In 1936 he participated in the Yerkes Observatory's project to build a new observatory . In the following years he was employed at this new McDonald observatory . During this time he and Daniel Popper researched the properties of stars of the spectral class B , but did not lose sight of the study of the colors of spiral galaxies .

From 1940 to 1942 he was the first to conduct research on nuclear emissions from spiral galaxies at the Mount Wilson Observatory . In 1943 he published a work on light-emitting galaxies with bright nuclei, which show characteristic broad spectral lines . Galaxies of this type have since been referred to as Seyfert galaxies . The most prominent example of such a Seyfert galaxy is Messier 77 ( NGC 1068 ), which Seyfert discovered himself. In 1942 he was called back to Cleveland due to World War II to teach navigation for army units and to do secret military research at the Case Institute . Despite the war, he managed to occupy himself with astronomy on the side: His observations mainly dealt with stars and nebulae in the Andromeda Galaxy M31 and stellar spectra . He was also able to take good color photos of nebulae and spectra with colleagues for the first time.

After the war, Seyfert went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville , Tennessee . At the time the university only had the small Barnard Observatory, which was equipped with a six-inch refractor that Edward Emerson Barnard had already worked with. Within a few years, however, Seyfert managed to build the new Arthur J. Dyer Observatory with a modern 60-centimeter refractory telescope in 1953 with the support of the city of Nashville . He was appointed its director and held this post until the end of his life. His research dealt with stellar and galactic astronomy as well as new instrument technologies.

From 1955 to 1958 he was a member of the board of directors of the American Astronomical Society , he was also a member of the Royal Astronomical Society , Associated Universities Incorporated and the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

On June 13, 1960, Carl Seyfert died in a car accident in Nashville at the age of 49.

In 1970 the lunar crater Seyfert was named after him, and the 60 cm telescope at the Dyer Observatory also bears his name. Furthermore, a class of galaxies, the Seyfert galaxies , as well as a galaxy cluster around NGC 6027 called Seyferts Sextet , which he discovered during his time at Vanderbilt University , commemorate his services to astronomy.

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personal data
SURNAME Seyfert, Carl Keenan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH February 11, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Cleveland , Ohio, USA
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 1960
Place of death Nashville , Tennessee, USA