Papers, etc.

Papers from his directorship of the Mt. Wilson & Palomar Observatories are at the Huntington Library. Excellent introduction. 28,000 items in 89 boxes. The AIP Center for History of Physics has oral history interviews of Horace Babcock and many of his colleagues, as well as an institutional history of Mt. Wilson observatory based on a 1948 talk by H.W. Babcock. There is an audiotape of a 1978 oral history interview at Caltech Archives.

Other References: Historical

Babcock, Horace W., “Diffraction gratings at the Mount Wilson Observatory,” Physics Today 39, 7, 34-42 (1986).

Hardy, John W., “Adaptive Optics: Trying to Gain Sky Coverage at Visible Wavelengths,” OE Reports, Dec. 1994.

Howard, R., “Eight Decades of Solar Research at Mt. Wilson,” Solar Physics 100, 171-187 (1985).

Hufbauer, Karl, Exploring the Sun: Solar Science Since Galileo (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, 1991).

Irwin, John, “The Case of the Southern Skies,” Griffith Observer 56, 7, 2 (July 1992).

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Other References:Scientific

Babcock, Horace W., “Spectrographic Observations of the Rotation of the Andromeda Nebula,” PASP 50, 174-75 (1938).

Babcock, Horace W., “The Rotation of the Andromeda Nebula,” Lick Obs. Bull. 498, 41-51 (1939).

Babcock, Horace W., “Radiations of the Night Sky Photographed with a Grating,” PASP 51, 46-50 (1939).

Keenan, Philip C. & Horace W. Babcock, “Interstellar Absorption Near the North Pole of Rotation,” Ap.J. 93, 64-69 (1941).

Babcock, Horace W., “Remarks on Stellar Magnetism,” PASP 59, 112-24 (1947).

Babcock, H.W., “Zeeman Effect in Stellar Spectra,” Ap.J. 105, 105-19 (1947) [reprinted in Selected Papers on Instrumentation in Astronomy ed. by William Livingston & Brian J. Thompson (SPIE Optical Engineering Press, Bellingham, WA, 1993), p. 358].

Babcock, Horace W., “Test for a Magnetic Field in the White Dwarf 40 Eridani B,” PASP 60, 368-70 (1948) [reprinted in the Centennial Edition, PASP 100, 1299-1301 (1988), followed by a modern review by James Liebert, 1301-05.

Babcock, Horace W., “A Photoelectric Guider for Astronomical Telescopes,” Ap.J. 107, 73-77 (1948).

Babcock, Horace W., “The Magnetic Field of g Equulei,” Ap.J. 108, 191-200 (1948).

Babcock, Horace W., “Magnetic Intensification of Stellar Absorption Lines,” Ap.J. 110, 126-42 (1949).

Babcock, Horace W., “The Magnetically Variable Star HD 125248,” Ap.J. 114, 1-36 (1951).

Babcock, Horace W. & Harold D. Babcock, “Mapping the Magnetic Fields of the Sun,” PASP 64, 282-87 (1952).

Babcock, H.W. , “The Possibility of Compensating Astronomical Seeing,” PASP 65, 229 (1953). [The first paper on adaptive optics.]

Babcock, Horace W., “The Solar Magnetograph,” Ap.J. 118, 387-96 (1953) [reprinted in the centennial edition Ap.J. 525, 525 (1999) with a modern commentary by William Livingston and also in Selected Papers on Instrumentation in Astronomy ed. by William Livingston & Brian J. Thompson (SPIE Optical Engineering Press, Bellingham, WA, 1993), p. 373].

Babcock, H.W. & Cowling, T. G., “General Magnetic Fields in the Sun and Stars (Report on Progress of Astronomy),” MNRAS 113, 357-81 (1953).

Babcock, H.W. & H.D. Babcock, “The Sun’s Magnetic Field, 1952-1954,” Ap. J. 121, 349 (1955).

Babcock, H.W., “Stellar Magnetic Fields,” in Electromagnetic Phenomena in Cosmical Physics, Proceedings from IAU Symposium no. 6. Edited by Bo Lehnert. International Astronomical Union. Symposium no. 6, (Cambridge University Press, 1958), p. 161.

Babcock, Horace W., “A Catalog of Magnetic Stars,” Ap.J. Supp. 3, 141- 210 (1958).

Babcock, Horace W., “Magnetic Fields of the A-Type Stars,” Ap.J. 128, 228-58 (1958).

Babcock, H.W. & H.D. Babcock, , “Photospheric Magnetic Fields,” in Electromagnetic Phenomena in Cosmical Physics, Proceedings from IAU Symposium no. 6. Edited by Bo Lehnert. International Astronomical Union. Symposium no. 6, (Cambridge University Press, 1958), p. 239.

Howard, Robert & Horace W. Babcock, “Magnetic Fields Associated with the Solar Flare of July 16, 1959,” Ap.J. 132, 218-20 (1960).

Babcock, Horace W., “The 34-kilogauss Magnetic Field of HD 215441,” Ap.J. 128, 521-31 (1960).

Babcock, H.W. , “Instrumental Recording of Astronomical Seeing,” PASP 75, 1-8 (1963).

Babcock, H.W., “The Sun’s Magnetic Field,” Ann. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 1, 41 (1963).

Babcock, Horace W., “Diffraction gratings at the Mount Wilson Observatory,” Physics Today 39, 7, 34-42 (1986); abstract)

Hardy, John W., Adaptive Optics for Astronomical Telescopes (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1998).

Other Works: Popularizations, History, etc.

Babcock, Horace W., “Optical Astronomy in Perspective,” Astronomical Society of the Pacific Leaflets 10, 89-96 (1967) [Leaflet #462, excerpted from Science 156, 1317-22 (1967).

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