Babcock, Horace Welcome

▪ 2004

      American astronomer (b. Sept. 13, 1912, Pasadena, Calif.—d. Aug. 29, 2003, Santa Barbara, Calif.), led the effort to create, in 1969, Chile's Las Campanas Observatory, the first observatory to be built far from sources of light pollution. In the 1950s Babcock devised the system of adaptive optics that enabled telescopes to compensate for the distorting effect of Earth's atmosphere on light from distant stars and galaxies. During that time Babcock and his father, Harold Delos Babcock, invented the solar magnetograph, which measures various properties of the Sun's magnetic field.

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▪ American scientist

born September 13, 1912, Pasadena, California, U.S.

died August 29, 2003, Santa Barbara

      American astronomer who with his father, Harold Delos Babcock (Babcock, Harold Delos), invented the solar magnetograph, an instrument allowing detailed observation of the Sun's magnetic field.

      Horace Babcock attended the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and the University of California. He worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the California Institute of Technology before joining the staff of Mount Wilson and Palomar Mountain observatories in 1946; he served as director of the observatories from 1964 to 1978. In the 1950s, working with his father, he developed the solar magnetograph; using the device, the two men demonstrated the existence of the Sun's general field and discovered magnetically variable stars. Babcock's other work included studies of the glow of the night sky, the rotation of galaxies, and telescope design. In the early 1970s he helped establish the Las Campanas Observatory in the Chilean Andes.

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