RARE “Lick Observatory" Donald Osterbrock Signed FDC Dated 1948 for Sale

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RARE “Lick Observatory" Donald Osterbrock Signed FDC Dated 1948 For Sale

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RARE “Lick Observatory" Donald Osterbrock Signed FDC Dated 1948:
$104.99

Up for sale "Astronomer" Donald Osterbrock Signed First Day Cover Dated 1948. This sale includes a RARE! 3X5 B&W Photo.

ES-7290E

Donald

Edward Osterbrock (July

13, 1924 – January 11, 2007) was an American astronomer,

best known for his work on star formation and on the history of astronomy. Osterbrock

was born in Cincinnati. His father was an electrical engineer. He

served with the US Army in the Second World War, making weather observations in the Pacific.

He did undergraduate classes in physics at the University of Chicago as part of

his weather training. He was educated at the University of Chicago, where he received bachelor's and

master's degrees in physics and a PhD in astronomy in 1952. He was a student

of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar while

working at University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory. His

work there with William Wilson Morgan and Stewart Sharpless showed the existence of the Milky Way's spiral arms. He became a post-doctoral researcher,

instructor and Assistant Professor at the California Institute of

Technology until 1958. He was then appointed Assistant

Professor at the University of

Wisconsin–Madison, received tenure there in 1959, and was promoted

to full professor in 1961. He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year

1960–1961. In 1973 he moved from Madison to the University

of California at Santa Cruz, as Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Director of Lick Observatory, a position he held until 1981. He remained

on the faculty at UC Santa Cruz until his retirement in 1993. Thereafter, Emeritus Professor Osterbrock continued to make daily

trips to his office on campus, to work on his research, to keep publishing, and

to maintain an active role in the astronomical community. At the time of his

death he had authored 12 monographs on astronomy and the history of astronomy,

including, in 1989 the influential textbook Astrophysics of Gaseous Nebulae and Active Galactic Nuclei, and

the recently updated and revised 2nd edition (2006) written along with Gary Ferland of

the University of Kentucky.

Alongside his more than 150 articles on astronomy and astrophysics, he

published 70 historical studies, biographical memoirs, and obituaries of major

figures in nineteenth and twentieth century astronomy, and numerous book

reviews. Osterbrock's research included work on the nature of ionized gases around hot stars and studying active galactic nuclei powered by black holes. Osterbrock received lifetime achievement awards

from the American Astronomical

Society and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. He

was President of the American Astronomical Society from 1988 to 1990. He died

following a heart attack. He was

survived by his wife of 54 years, Irene Hansen (1926-2019), and their son and

two daughters.