Geoffrey G. Douglass
Geoffrey
Gardner Douglass was born 11 June 1942 in Rocky River, Ohio, and
grew up there with a passion for science, theatre, and pets. He
attended the nearby Case Institute of Technology (Cleveland, Ohio)
before coming to the U.S. Naval Observatory on April 28, 1967.
He worked at the USNO for over 30 years, until his retirement in
January 1999. He was involved in the observing and measurement of
parallax and double star plates on the SAMM and MANN measuring
engines, and was stationed at Blenheim, New Zealand from 1985-1988
working at the Black Birch site on the Twin Astrograph Telescope.
While there he and his wife Doris travelled extensively throughout
New Zealand and Australia, He later worked with an early iteration
of the USNO StarScan measuring machine. However, most of his work
involved observations of visual double stars with the USNO 26" Clark
Refractor, from collaborating with F.J. ("Jerry") Josties on the
photographic program in the late 1960's to development of the USNO's
speckle interferometry program throughout the 1990's.
Geoff collaborated with Charles Worley from 1968 until
Charles' death in December 1997, writing much of the double star
software and assisting in the production of the observatory's double
star catalogs. It was often joked that the "w' and "D" in the WDS
(officially the "Washington Double Star" catalog) really stood for
"Worley" and "Douglass" .
During his last year at the
observatory he oversaw the publication of over 10,000 speckle
observations, and guided the recently hired Brian Mason (Charles'
replacement) in the management of the double star program. He
continued to have an interest in the activities at the USNO even
during his long hospitalizaton, and was regularly sought out for his
knowledge on instrumentation and earlier observations.
He
battled with illness for many years. He was a symbol of the
worthiness of organ donation, living for some two decades following
a kidney transplant, before succumbing to complications following
kidney failure .
Geoff is survived by his wife Doris, with
whom he shared a love of cats and classical music, as well as
passionate religous beliefs. He will be sorely missed by his many
friends and colleagues.
A brief summary of his work can be found at
http://ad.usno.navy.mil/wds/history/douglass.html
A model of the orbital planes of the visual double stars.
A research made at the Observatoire Royal de
Belgique some thirty-five years ago by J. Dommanget and O. Nys, has
shown some specific space organisation of the orbital planes of the
visual double stars on the contrary of what was thought since more
than a century. A tri-dimensional model based on 70 stars showed
this organisation very clearly especialy in the Sun's environment.
Twenty years later a second research (1982-1987) concerning
145 stars, confirmed this result which was observed with more
precision on a second model that was exhibited, during the IAU
Colloquium n° 97 "Wide components in double and multiple stars" held
at Brussels in 1987. (See: Astrophysics and Space Science, 142,
1988, pp. 171-176).
A short presentation of this model has
recently been given in the Bulletin de la Commission des Etoiles
doubles de la Societe Astronomique de France, n° 42 of march 2004,
pp. 13-14 and an historical synthesis of the various researches made
on this subject since 1838 by J. H. MADLER will appear in Ciel et
Terre n° 121, 1, 2005. On these occasions and on that of a few talks
on the subject, it was decided to transfer this model from the
Observatoire Royal de Belgique to the Observatoire de la Cote d'
Azur, France where it will be preserved.
In the framework of
the project "Museal" , near to the historical refractors of the Nice
Observatory, this model will be integrated in the presentation
devoted to the double star researches.
J. Dommanget.
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
Errors and Omissions
|
|
The Forum
|
|
What's new?
|
|
We are looking for your help to improve the accuracy of The Douglas
Archives.
If you spot errors, or omissions, then
please do let us know
Contributions
Many articles are stubs which would benefit from re-writing.
Can you help?
Copyright
You are not authorized to add this page or any images from this page
to Ancestry.com (or its subsidiaries) or other fee-paying sites
without our express permission and then, if given, only by including
our copyright and a URL link to the web site.
|
|
If you have met a brick wall
with your research, then posting a notice in the Douglas Archives
Forum may be the answer. Or, it may help you find the answer!
You may also be able to help others answer their queries.
Visit the
Douglas Archives Forum.
2 Minute Survey
To provide feedback on the website, please take a couple of
minutes to complete our
survey.
|
|
We try to keep everyone up to date with new entries, via our
What's New section on the
home page.
We also use
the Community
Network to keep researchers abreast of developments in the
Douglas Archives.
Help with costs
Maintaining the three sections of the site has its costs. Any
contribution the defray them is very welcome
Donate
Newsletter
If you would like to receive a very occasional newsletter -
Sign up!
Temporarily withdrawn.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
