Stewart Sharpless

Stewart Sharpless is an American astronomer who carried out fundamental work on the structure of the Milky Way galaxy.

As a graduate student at Yerkes Observatory he worked under William Morgan with fellow graduate student Don Osterbrock.^[1] In 1952, they published their observations that demonstrated the spiral structure of the Milky Way by estimating the distances to H II regions and young hot stars. For a while Sharpless was at Mount Wilson Observatory where he worked on galaxy photography with Walter Baade and Edwin Hubble.^[2]

In 1953 Sharpless joined the staff of the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station.^[2] Here he surveyed and cataloged H II regions of the Milky Way Galaxy using the images from the Palomar Sky Survey. From this work Sharpless published his catalog of H II regions in two editions, the first in 1953 with 142 nebula.^[3] The second and final edition was published in 1959 with 313 nebulae^[4] (see Sharpless catalog).

Stewart Sharpless is currently a retired Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester.

References

1. ^ Shirley K. Cohen, Interview with Donald E. Osterbrock, Feb 10, 2003, California Institute of Technology Archives
2. ^ ^{a b} Steven, Dick (2002). Sky and Ocean Joined: The U.S. Naval Observatory, 1830-2000. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521815994. 
3. ^ Stewart Sharpless, A Catalogue of Emission Nebulae Near the Galactic Plane, Astrophysical Journal, vol. 118, p.362, 1953
4. ^ Stewart Sharpless, A Catalogue of H II Regions, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, vol. 4, p.257, 1959

External links

• Photographic Sharpless Catalog
• Digitized Sky Survey
• Stewart Sharpless's home page