Rittenhouse Astronomical Society

RECIPIENT	DATE	AFFILIATION
Dr. Frank Schlessinger	Oct. 17, 1933	Director Yale Observatory Originally from Yerkes Observatory, he was also president of the American Astronomical society. His main research interest was the improvement of parallax measurements. Results of his investigations are world-renowned and he is considered the leading authority in that area of research.
Dr. Robert G. Aitken	Oct. 16, 1934	Director Lick Observatory He made systematic surveys of binary stars, discovering thousands, measuring their positions visually and calculating orbits for many. His works allowed orbit determinations which increased astronomer's knowledge of stellar masses.
Dr. Harlow Shapley	Oct. 19, 1935	Mount Wilson Observatory Calibrated Henrietta S. Leavitts's period-luminosity relation for Cepheid variable stars and used it to determine distances to globular clusters. He boldly and correctly proclaimed that globulars outline the Milky Way and the galaxy's center was thousands of light years away in the direction of Sagittarius.
Dr. Robert McMath	Dec. 11, 1936	Director McMath-Hulbert Observatory Served as chairman of the association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. The National Solar Observatory is the crowning achievement of Dr. McMath who was known for his expertise in solar physics and building solar telescopes. The observatory is co-named along with Dr. Pierce.
Dr. Armin O. Leuschner	Apr. 22, 1937	Berkley Astronomical Department Director University of California His research was in orbit theory, and he determined or refined the orbits of numerous asteroids and comets, but his most important contribution to astronomy was as an educator.
Dr. Knut Lundmark	Mar. 24, 1938	Professor of Astronomy, University of Lund, Sweden Plotted the radial velocity galaxies against their estimated distances. He made rough determinations of the distances to other galaxies by comparing their sizes and brightness to that of M31. Lundmark concluded that there may be a relationship between galactic red-shift and distance, but "not a very definite one." 1924
Dr. Gustavus Wynne Cook	Mar. 6, 1940	Director Cook Observatory Investigator in Astronomical Science, The observatory named for Dr. Cook; now named the Flower and Cook Observatory, is one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in America: Founded in 1895. Originally in Malverne PA, and now relocated on the University of Pennsylvania Campus atop the David Rittenhouse Laboratory.
Dr. John A. Miller	May 10, 1940	Director Emeritus, Sproul Observatory
Dr. Forest Ray Moulton	Mar. 3, 1943	Secretary, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Mr. Samuel Fels	Nov. 9, 1943	Philanthropist and Donor of Fels Planetarium One of Philadelphia's most prominent philanthropists. He took an active interest in, and gave generous support to, civic, scientific, cultural, and educational causes.

~ Silver Medal Award ~

RECIPIENT	DATE	AFFILIATION
Dr. Gerard P. Kuiper	April 16,1952	Director Yerkes Observatory April 16, 1952 Kuiper discovered two moons of planets: Uranus�s moon Miranda in 1948 and Neptune�s moon Nereid in 1949. In 1944 he discovered that Saturn�s moon Titan had an atmosphere of methane. He is considered the father of modern planetary science. He was chief scientist for the Ranger lunar-probe program and identified landing sites for the Apollo moon missions. His greatest contribution was the prediction in 1951 that a belt of minor planets existed outside Neptune�s orbit that was the source of short-period comets. This belt, now called the Kuiper Belt is also the location of possible other planets.
Dr. Harlow Shapley	March 18,1953	Director Harvard Observatory There he studied the Magellanic clouds and made catalogs of galaxies. He wrote many books and was an important popularizer of science. He founded and developed an outstanding graduate school. Cofounder of UNESCO, he played a major role in national and international affairs.
Dr. Otto Struve	April 23, 1954	President International Astronomical Union: He made detailed spectroscopic investigations of stars. He directed four observatories including McDonald which he founded and where a telescope is named for him.
Sir Harold Spencer Jones	April 22, 1955	Astronomer Royal of England Apr. 22, 1955 From 1933 to 1955 Spencer Jones was the tenth Astronomer Royal. He determined the distance from Earth to the sun by triangulating the distance to the asteroid Eros, refining the near accurate measurement made by David Rittenhouse in 1769. He published a paper in 1939 showing that the Earth�s rotation was not uniform and could no longer be used as an accurate clock. He worked at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and supervised its move to Herstmonceux Castle in Sussex.
Dr. Lyman Spitzer, Jr.	May 19, 1958	Director Princeton University Observatory He was the first to propose putting a large telescope in space. The Hubble Space Telescope was based on his concepts. The Infrared Spitzer Space Telescope was named for him.
Dr. Bengt Stromgren	April 1, 1959	Professor; Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton: Known for his theory of the ionized gas clouds around hot stars. He calculated the relative abundances of the elements in the sun and other stars.
Dr. Fred Hoyle	January 6, 1960	Plumian Professor of Astronomy, Cambridge University He coined the term Big Bang but never accepted that theory for the origin of the universe. Hoyle believed in the steady-state theory. He advanced a theory that infections on Earth resulted from microorganisms arriving from distant places in the universe.
Cecelia Payne Gaposchkin	1961	Professor Harvard University: The first woman to become a full professor at Harvard University. Her dissertation was said to be the best one in 20th century astronomy. She was ahead of her time showing that hydrogen and helium were a major constituent of stars.
Peter Van De Kamp	1965	Director Sproul Observatory, Swarthmore College He studied nearby stars measuring their movements. He started a search for planets orbiting other stars. He was the president of the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society in 1944.
Martin Schwarzschild	1966	Professor; Princeton University His book, "Structure and Evolution of the Stars," was used by astrophysicists to apply computers to the computation of stellar models. His Stratosphere project sent balloons with instruments to obtain data of the sun, other stars and planets of our solar system in the 1950s and 1960s.
Helen Sawyer Hogg	1967	Harvard Observatory Encouraged women to study and enter the science profession. She developed techniques for measuring the distance to galaxies beyond the Milky Way. Her research was on variable stars in globular clusters. She was program director for the National Science Foundation, first female president of the Royal Canadian Institute and founded the Canadian Astronomical Society. In 1976 she became a Companion of the Order of Canada-one of the highest honors in the nation.
Allan Sandage	1968	He found the first optical counterpart to a radio source that would be identified as a quasar. His research has been in stellar astronomy and observational cosmology. He was involved in determining the ages of the oldest objects known.
Carl Sagan	1980
Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker	1988
Clyde Tombaugh	1990

~ Gallery~

The undertaking was near maddening! During his 14-year search for planets beyond Neptune, Clyde Tombaugh photographed 70 percent of the night sky and blinked 90,000 square degrees of star fields. Some plates had more than a million star images each. The search areas are plotted on his copy of Norton's Star Atlas. Courtesy Clyde Tombaugh Astronomy Magazine April 1991

Dr. Howard McClenahan, Secretary of The Franklin Institute and Director of the Museum; Samuel Fels; and Dr. James Stokley, the Institute's Associate Director for Astronomy, admire the Mark Zeiss II planetarium instrument in the Fels Planetarium, circa 1933

Clyde Tombaugh receives the Rittenhouse Medal from Milton Friedman, president of the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Photograph by Robert Summerfield, Sky and Telescope Magazine April 1991

Carolyn and
Eugene Shoemaker