Papers
Aitken's papers are at the Mary Lea Shane Archives of Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz library, which also houses transcripts of interviews of C. Donald Shane and Mary Lea Shane taken by Helen Wright in July 1967. The AIP Niels Bohr Library & Archives has oral interviews of sons Douglas Aitken and Malcolm Aitken, both interviewed by David H. DeVorkin in 1977, and a 1979 interview of Malcolm D. Aitken by Eric Jackson.
Other References: Historical
Search ADS for works about Aitken
Aitken, Robert G., “Recent Progress in Double Star Astronomy: A Review,” PASP 34, 330 (1922).
Aitken, R.G., “The Lick Observatory, Forty Years After,” PASP 40, 151 (1928).
Aitken, Robert G., “Life and Work at Mount Hamilton,” California Monthly 9 (6) 9-12, 39-41 (1935).
Aitken, Robert G., “William Wallace Campbell, 1862-1938,” Science 88, 25 (1938); PASP 50, 204 (1938).
Aitken, Robert G., “February 7, 1889-February 7, 1939 and the Years Between,” PASP 51, 5 (1939). [on the first 50 years of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific].
Aitken, Robert G., “The Story of the Lick Observatory,” Griffith Observer 3, 38 (1939).
Aitken, R.G., “Comments from the Side Lines,“ Popular Astronomy 48, 457-465 (1940) [Address of retiring president of the American Astronomical Society].
Aitken, Robert G., “Early Work on Double Stars at the Lick Observatory,” PASP 57, 138 (1945).
Aitken, Robert G., “Joseph Haines Moore: 1878-1949. A Tribute,” PASP61, 125-28 (1949).
Aitken, Robert G., “The Origin of the A.S.P.,” Griffith Observer 14, 86-93 (1950).
Couteau, Paul, Ces astronomes fous du ciel, ou, L’Histoire de l’observation des etoiles doubles, Edisud, La Calade, Aix-en-Provence,1988).
Curtis, Heber D., “Dean of Double-Star Workers,” The Sky 5, 6, 3 (1941).
Moore, J.H., “Fifty Years of Research at the Lick Observatory,” PASP 50, 189-203 (1938).
Osterbrock, D.E., J. Gustafson, & J. S. Unruh, Eye on the Sky: Lick Observatory’s First Century (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988).
Tenn, Joseph S., “Keepers of the Double Stars,” Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 16, 81 (2013).
Other References: Scientific
Search ADS for works by Aitken
Aitken, R.G., “The Definition of the Term Double Star,” Astr. Nach. 188, 281-94 (1911).
Aitken, Robert Grant, Measures of Double Stars Made with the Thirty-six-inch and Twelve-inch Refractors of the Lick Observatory from June, 1895, to December, 1912 (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1914).
Aitken, Robert G., The Binary Stars (Doublas C. McMurtrie, NY, 1918)
Aitken, R.G., “What We Know about Double Stars,” MNRAS 92, 7, 596-610 (1932). [George Darwin Lecture]
Aitken, Robert G., New General Catalogue of Double Stars within 120° of the North Pole (Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC , 1932).
Aitken, Robert G., The Binary Stars (McGraw-Hill, 1935; Dover, 1964)
Aitken, Robert G., “The Outlook for Double Star Astronomy,” Astronomical Journal 52, 32-33 (1946).
Other References: Popularizations, History, etc.
Aitken, R.G., “A Total Eclipse of the Sun,” in The Adolfo Stahl Lectures in Astronomy, Delivered in San Francisco, California, in 1916-17 and 1917-18 (Astronomical Society of the Pacific, San Francisco, 1919), pp. 52-75.
Aitken, Robert G., “Why Popular Interest in Mars?” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1, 3-6 (1925) [Leaflet #2].
Aitken, Robert G., “How Far Away Is That Star, and How Do You Know?” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1, 19-22 (1926) [Leaflet #6].
Aitken, Robert G., “Weighing the Stars,” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 1, 85-88 (1929) [Leaflet #21].
Aitken, Robert G., “The Use of Astronomy,” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2, 33-36 (1933) [Leaflet #59].
Aitken, Robert G., “Behold the Stars!” in Mason, Frances Baker, ed., The Great Design: Order and Progress in Nature (Macmillan, NY, 1934).
Aitken, Robert G., “Stellar Motions and Stellar Distances,” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2, 165-68 (1936) [Leaflet #92].
Aitken, Robert G., “Driving Back the Dark,” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 3, 1-22 (1937) [Leaflet #101].
Aitken, Robert G., “What Time Is It. Please?” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 3, 70-77 (1938) [Leaflet #108].
Aitken, Robert G., “On Observing Double Stars,” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 3, 131-38 (1938) [Leaflet #117].
Aitken, Robert G., “New Light on the Stars,” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 4, 330-37 (1945) [Leaflet #191].
Aitken, Robert G., “The Discovery of the Planet Neptune,” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 5, 88-94 (1946) [Leaflet #211].
Aitken, Robert G., “The Era of the Four Royal Stars,” Leaflets of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 5, 225-33 (1948) [Leaflet #227].
Aitken, Robert G., “Joseph Haines Moore: 1878-1949. A Tribute,” PASP 61, 125-28 (1949).
Aitken, Robert G., “Calendar Reform from an Astronomer’s Viewpoint,” JRASC 46, 89-92 (1952).
