Alvan Clark

Alvan Clark
Born (1804-03-08)March 8, 1804
Ashfield, Massachusetts
Died August 19, 1887(1887-08-19) (aged 83)
Nationality American
Fields Astronomy
Notable awards Lalande Prize (1862)

Alvan Clark (March 8, 1804 – August 19, 1887), born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, the descendant of a Cape Cod whaling family of English ancestry, was an American astronomer and telescope maker. He was a portrait painter and engraver (ca.1830s-1850s), and at the age of 40 became involved in telescope making. Using glass blanks made by Chance Brothers of Birmingham and Feil-Mantois of Paris, his firm Alvan Clark & Sons ground lenses for refracting telescopes, including the largest in the world at the time: the 18.5-inch (47 cm) at Dearborn Observatory at the Old University of Chicago (the lens was originally intended for Ole Miss), the two 26-inch (66 cm) telescopes at the United States Naval Observatory and McCormick Observatory, the 30-inch (76 cm) at Pulkovo Observatory (destroyed in the Siege of Leningrad; only the lens survives), the 36-inch (91 cm) telescope at Lick Observatory (still third-largest) and later the 40-inch (100 cm) at Yerkes Observatory, which remains the largest successful refracting telescope in the world. One of Clark's sons, Alvan Graham Clark, discovered the dim companion of Sirius. His other son was George Bassett Clark; both sons were partners in the firm.

Two craters bear his name. The crater Clark on the Moon is jointly named for him and his son, Alvan Graham Clark, and one on Mars is named in his honor.

Alvan Clark Refractor Telescope at Lowell Observatory

See also

Image gallery

Portraits by Clark

References

    Further reading

    External links

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alvan Clark.
    This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 7/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.