I like Dr. Carl Sagan. I am too young to have remembered his time alive (Billions and billions!) but admire his legacy in promoting and popularizing astronomy and science. He was one of the founders of the Planetary Society, worked on the Viking missions, wrote a lot of cool books like Contact, and made brilliant hypothesises about aspects of the solar system, like Titan and Europa have liquid oceans.

Who is your favorite astronomer, living or dead?

Fred Hoyle - for sheer breadth of vision and refusal to toe the party line.

Another difficult choice, but my favorite astronomers come in pairs:

Dr James Elliott + Dr Edward Dunham (1977 discovery of Uranus' rings using the KAO flying telescope)
Dr Eugene Shoemaker + Dr David Levy (1993 discovery of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 which collided with Jupiter)
Dr Michel Mayor + Dr Didier Queloz (1995 discovery of 1st exoplanet)

I'm torn between Carl Sagan and Patrick Moore. Carl because... well, he was Carl! and Patrick Moore because, as a Brit, he IS astronomy to me, and has been ever since I was knee-high to a Jawa. Like so many amateur (and probably professional too) astronomers here I was first guided around the heavens by one of Patrick's books; he pointed out where the Orion Nebula and the Andromeda Galaxy were to me, and I never looked back.

But coming in third would have to be an astronomer born in my hometown. His life story is truly incredible, and would make a superb true life film one day. Too long a story to recount here, so if anyone wants to read about Fearon Fallows, they can find my biog of him here...

The Rev. Fearon Fallows.

Patrick Moore.

Alex Fillipenko

If you get a chance to hear him lecture, don't miss it...it's Turtles all the way down:)

Percival Lowell. He may have been utterly wrong about a lot of things, but his energy prompted a rennaissance in the field that launched modern astronomy.

-the other Doug

Tycho Brahe. "Look Ma, no hand" oups : no telescope
...and Carl because I sew him back in 1989 for Voyage II Neptune encounter. His talk was so inspiring even for a non english speaking person as myself.

Carl's always gonna have a special place in my heart, of course, but my personal hero is Milton Humason, co-discoverer of the Hubble Constant. The guy started out as a janitor at Mt. Wilson & rose from there, largely self taught; really an amazing & admirable story.

.

He applied an invention to studying the night sky. He didn't invent it. ;-)

Andy

I nominate Fritz Zwicky. Essentially discovered dark matter, dwarf galaxies, and supernovae, and corrected Einstein about where to look for gravitational lensing. Then went on to lay out the rationales for studying gravitational lensing by galaxies in a 1.5-page paper appearing in 1937. Also managed to alienate virtually the entire astronomical community by refusing to act much like a human being. His "red book" introduction alone refers to "a gentlemanly spirit all too rare among American astronomers", sycophants, autistic intepretations, plain thieves, and cosmological models devoid of either aesthetic or physical value. He did important work with Walter Baade, until Zwicky's public accusation of Nazism alienated even Baade, noted for being mild-mannered. Don Osterbrock told me I'd be less impressed had I ever actually had to deal with Zwicky - so I now tell students that his life lesson to the rest of us may be that if you can't deal with other human beings in a tolerable manner, maybe you should publish your brilliant results, then go into hiding and shut up.

Zwicky also played a significant role in the founding of JPL, and has somewhat of a following of his "morphological approach" to problem solving.

William Herschel,

The first to understand that the universe is an evolving thing

Since Herschel is already taken I'll nominate Joseph Fraunhofer, the inventor of the spectroscope and spectroscopy.
He started out as an orphan and a glassmakers apprentice and practically created the german optical industry single-handed before dying aged 39.

Talking about Galileo Galilei, in 2 years time we'll celebrate the 400th anniversary of the use of the Telescope!
It's going to be an exciting year, astronomy-wise, as there're worldwide celebrations planned by the IAU

My favorite Planetary Geologist is Gene Shoemaker <Yeah.. he was an astronomer, too>
But my fave astronomertypeastronomer <all 1 word> might be Fred Whipple. Mr. Comet. I met him a few times at meetings. One Helluva-nice-guy.

Great question - difficult to answer!
I'm torn three ways:
First, those astronomers (mathematicians, philosophers) who have a flash of incredible insight and change the world for ever with their genius, or distinguish themselves as being generations ahead of their time (Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, Newton)
Second, those astronomers with the ability to popularise this subject with their enthusiasm and knowledge (Patrick Moore, Carl Sagan)
Third, those astronomers who work their a**es off and distinguish themselves through sheer hard graft, observational exactitude and painstaking determination (Messier, Herschel, Tombaugh, Humason)

Personally I have a huge admiration for:
Dr Sagan, as he seemed to be a polymath of prodigious abilities. He had the common touch as well as the genius, enthusiasm and humility to inspire a whole generation of people, mixing a knowledge of chemistry, natural history, archaeology and more in his TV series Cosmos.
Patrick Moore - His moon maps were referenced by NASA for the Apollo mission, and he's a British national institution akin to David Attenborough. I tried to catch him out once as a gauche 19 year old on his Halley's comet tour in '86 when he was taking questions from the floor, with an obscure question about a lost Saturnian moon (Themis). He was completely unfazed, and knew all about it. Also he's been fronting the sky at night since 1957 - the world's longest running TV astronomy programme.

Ultimate admiration has to go to Galileo though who must have known that his discoveries might personally imperil him but described them anyway. Reported the existence, and motions of Jupiters largest moons, and recognised them for what they are, catalogued the phases of Venus, noted sunspots, and also lunar mountains and craters. Was a consummate observer and very brave man to boot, in a period of closed-mindedness which beggars belief.

My choice then is Galileo Galilei....

Talking about Carl Sagan, next week it's already 11 years since his death...
Some weekly magazines/periodicals had good articles on him:
NEWSWEEK 1977, August 15 - Astronomer Carl Sagan Seeking New Worlds
TIME 1980, October 20 - Astronomer Carl Sagan Showman of Science

jasedm:

"Patrick Moore - His moon maps were referenced by NASA for the Apollo mission"

I didn't notice this when it was posted, but I think it ought to be corrected. This is not true, and I think it's a mis-recollection of an older event. The Soviet Union's first images of the lunar far side were compared with a farside chart published by Moore and Wilkins in 1955 - H. P. (Percy, I think) Wilkins. The chart was actually drawn by Wilkins. It showed the libration zone around the edges, and a few crater rays extrapolated onto the far side. Where two rays crossed, a crater was suspected. Only one of their predicted craters was actually found - Giordano Bruno.

Moore produced near-side maps, but not in much detail. For Apollo, NASA used the wonderful shaded relief maps - masterpieces of the cartographers' art - produced by the U. S. Air Force and (to a lesser extent) the U. S. Army.

Phil

full inline quote removed - Doug

I'm prepared to bow to your greater knowledge Phil. I'm perhaps guilty of repeating half-remembered statements, but there are persistent (perhaps apocryphal) accounts of Sir Patrick's lunar maps being used by both the Russians and NASA during their moon reconnaissance programmes in the late 50's and early 60's.
Still one of my choices though for favourite astronomer - half a century fronting a popular TV astronomy programme against an increasingly apathetic BBC.... he deserves all the veneration and plaudits he gets.....

Galileo easily.

He was privileged to be the first life form on earth to gain some understanding of the other planets as PLACES.

...and 400 years later, that's what UMSF is all about, no?

Giovanni Schiaparelli. Okay, so he was mistaken about canals, but he was one of the first to take the markings on Mars seriously and try to map them. Also, his nomenclature was superb -- something I unfortunately can't say about later planetary surface nomenclature.

Like a few others, I'll break them down by profession:

Favorite observational astronomer: Galileo. I can't imagine how exciting it was to learn about Jupiter's moons, heliocentric orbits, lunar craters, and the stellar composition of the Milky Way for the first time. Herschel is a *very* close second.

Favorite theoretician: Fritz Zwicky. Though every account of him I've read says that he was insufferable, the man was ahead of his time. Kepler is a dead heat.

Favorite astrophyisicist: Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who first showed that the Sun (and hence, all stars) are primarily composed of hydrogen. It seems like she's always gotten swept under the PR rug, though astrophysicists hold her in very high regard.

Favorite popularizer: Sagan, of course. My own approach to astronomy would be very different had I never encountered his work.

Edwin Hubble on US post stamp:
http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroo...08/sr08_023.htm

Also check Carl Sagan on a US poststamp soon?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XDcY0xeRCg&feature=inbox

Favorite astronomer?

Brian Skiff if alive. E.E. Barnard if deceased.

--Bill

For the "unsung giants" category I nominate Henrietta Leavitt, for the discovery of Cepheid variables through painstaking hours poring over photographic plates. This paved the way for Hubble to settle the debate about whether galaxies are beyond the milky way, discover red shift and the expansion of the universe, which leads to the Big Bang, inflation, the standard model, and straight on through to strings and M theory.

REALLY like all the Sagan stamp designs; I hope that they are adopted.

The man deserves tribute; how many of the younger UMSFers would be here without him? He inspired the hell out of me, and I was already hooked after Mariner 9! More than that, I'd argue that Carl was the prime force that kept US UMSF from sliding into almost complete extinction during the late 70s & 80s...truly an invaluable contribution to the future of us all, and more immediately his championship of UMSF thoughout this difficult period is the reason that we have the MERs, Cassini, etc. at all.

A stamp? Hell, if I was calling the shots, I'd put him on the currency...

Shame to make those Sagan stamps $0.41 stamps though - the US postage rate is going up to $0.43 in May!

Yeah...I'd say that a Sagan stamp should be worth billions & billions...

(Sorry; couldn't resist! )