Donald E. Osterbrock papers, bulk 1950-2006

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Summary

Creators:
Osterbrock, Donald E.
Abstract:
This collection contains Dr. Donald E. Osterbrock's activities as astronomer and science writer, director of the Lick Observatory, and Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Extent:
79 Linear Feet 137 archives boxes, 2 cartons
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

Donald E. Osterbrock papers. UA40. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, meeting files and minutes, notebooks, biographies, obituaries, photographs, negatives, reprints, research files, and observing records.

Biographical / historical:

Donald E. Osterbrock (1924-2007) was the director of Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton in California, an astronomer, and historian of science. Osterbrock studied the birth of stars and luminous clouds of gas at the core of galaxies outside the Milky Way known as gaseous nebulae.

In his textbook for graduate students, Astrophysics of Gaseous Nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei (1989), he explained the phenomenon and also described events going on at the center of external galaxies. The book includes descriptions of quasars, the distant and massive black holes whose brightness can sometimes be detected through optical telescopes from Earth. In 2006, the text was published in a revised edition with another astronomer, Gary J. Ferland.

In the early 1950s, while still a graduate student at the University of Chicago, Dr. Osterbrock helped determine the spiral shape of the Milky Way in observations at the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin. Working with William W. Morgan and others, he used a wide-angle camera to detect clouds of glowing hydrogen gas and trace the spiraling arms of the galaxy. The landmark discovery was announced at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in 1951.

Late in his career, Dr. Osterbrock augmented his research with historical studies and intellectual biographies of prominent astronomers of the 19th and 20th centuries. He wrote profiles of James E. Keeler and Walter Baade as well as a book-length study, Pauper and Prince: Ritchey, Hale and Big American Telescopes (1993).

Donald Edward Osterbrock was born in Cincinnati on July 13, 1924. He earned his doctorate in astronomy from the University of Chicago in 1952.

After teaching briefly at Princeton and the California Institute of Technology, he joined the University of Wisconsin as an assistant professor of astronomy in 1958. Dr. Osterbrock was named a professor of astronomy at Wisconsin in 1961 and remained until 1973.

He was director of Lick Observatory from 1973 to 1981, and a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, from 1973 to 1992. He became a professor emeritus there in 1993.

He served as president of the American Astronomical Society from 1988 to 1990. The Royal Astronomical Society awarded him a gold medal in 1997.

Dr. Osterbrock died on Jan. 11, 2007 in Santa Cruz, Calif. He was 82.

Excerpt, The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/obituaries/27osterbrock.html

Processing information:
Processed by:
UCSC Special Collections and Archives
Date Completed:
2015
Encoded by:
Debra Roussopoulos
Arrangement:

The collection adheres to the original order organized by the creator. Original folder titles were retained when possible.

Note to the researcher: The collection was received in multiple accruals and processed by MPLP standards. The first accrual was minimally processed and was housed off-site when processing began on the second and third accrual. Information on a particular person or subject may be found in more than one location in the finding aid.

Physical location:
Stored offsite at NRLF: Advance notice is required for access to the papers.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Collection open for research.

Terms of access:

Property rights for this collection reside with the University of California. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. The publication or use of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use for research or educational purposes requires written permission from the copyright owner. Responsibility for obtaining permissions, and for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information on copyright or to order a reproduction, please visit guides.library.ucsc.edu/speccoll/reproduction-publication.

Preferred citation:

Donald E. Osterbrock papers. UA40. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Location of this collection:
Special Collections and Archives, University Library
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064, US
Contact:
(831) 459-2547
speccol@library.ucsc.edu
Website