George W. Preston

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George W. Preston III. (Born August 25, 1930 in Los Angeles , California ) is an American astronomer .

Preston graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in 1952 and received his PhD in astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley , in 1959 . He was then a Carnegie Fellow of the Carnegie Institution at the Mount Wilson Observatory (1959/60) and from 1960 Assistant Astronomer at the Lick Observatory of the University of California, Santa Cruz . In 1964 he became an associate astronomer and from 1968 he was a member of the observatories of the Carnegie Institution. 1975 to 1980 he was Assistant Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, 1980/81 Acting Director of the Observatories of Mt. Wilson and Las Campanas and 1981 to 1986 Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory.

Preston deals with stellar spectroscopy, the structure of the galaxy and magnetic stars. In the last few decades he has been concerned with the search and investigation of the chemical composition of cosmologically early stars that received their fuel (predominantly hydrogen and helium) directly from the Big Bang and are accordingly poor in heavy metals. He worked with Steve Shectman. They put together a first list of a hundred such stars and used these theories to investigate nucleosynthesis in stars. He also studies stars in the final stages of their evolution and the mass exchange in binary star systems. Recently analyzed the chemical composition and other properties of RR Lyrae stars .

In 2009 he was Henry Norris Russell Lecturer of the American Astronomical Society ( RR Lyrae atmospherics: wrinkles old and new. A preview ) and in 1965 he received the Helen B. Warner Prize . In 1963 he was Robert J. Trumpler Lecturer at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life and career data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ↑ The Astronomical Journal, Volume 141, 2011, No. 1, Abstract
personal data
SURNAME Preston, George W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California