Robert Burnham, Jr.

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Robert Burnham, Jr. (born June 16, 1931 in Chicago , Illinois , † March 20, 1993 in San Diego , California ) was an American astronomer . He was best known for his work Burnham's Celestial Handbook ( Burnham's Handbook of Heaven ).

Life

Burnham's ancestors came from Germany; the original family name was Bernheim.

Burnham's family moved from Chicago to Prescott , Arizona in 1940 , where he graduated from high school in 1949. This ended his school education.

He was considered a shy, introverted personality, had few friends and was never married. He devoted most of his time to amateur astronomy , observing the sky with a self-made telescope .

In 1957 he discovered a comet and became known to the public. This led to a position at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff , Arizona in 1958 , where he took part in a program to study the proper motion of stars. Burnham's task was to examine photographic recordings using a blink comparator . During his twenty-one year activity at the observatory, he and his colleagues discovered a. Norman G. Thomas , five other comets (including 56P / Slaughter-Burnham ) and the asteroid (3397) Leyla .

In his spare time, Burnham compiled an extensive collection of astronomical data that was published in 1978 as the "Celestial Handbook".

After completing the research program in December 1979, he could no longer be employed as an astronomer at the observatory. He turned down a job as a caretaker offered there.

The loss of his position at the observatory meant a personal, professional and financial blow to Burnham, from which he never recovered. Although his manual was selling increasingly well, his living conditions deteriorated. He withdrew more and more and suffered from depression.

Despite being a successful author, Burnham spent his final years impoverished in San Diego , selling self-painted cat pictures in a park.

He died lonely at the age of 61. His family did not find out about his death until two years later.

In his memory, the asteroid (3467) was named Bernheim . Since an asteroid (834) Burnhamia (named after the astronomer Sherburne Wesley Burnham , with whom he was not related) already existed, the name follows the original family name.

plant

During his work at the Lowell Observatory Burnham collected extensive astronomical data and published them from 1966 in self-publishing. In 1978 a revised version was published in three volumes by Dover.

The work on the manual and its publication were never officially supported by the Lowell Observatory.

The Celestial Handbook is a 2,138-page work in which deep-sky objects such as stars , double stars , variables , gas nebulae , star clusters and galaxies are cataloged and sometimes described in detail. It contains several hundred photographs, tables and diagrams. Due to its information content, the manual is one of the classics of astronomical literature. Since the objects described can also be observed with small and medium-sized telescopes, it is used by many amateur astronomers. To this day, however, it is only available in English.

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personal data
SURNAME Burnham, Robert Jr.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois , USA
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1993
Place of death San Diego , California