Ken Osborne Wright

Born in Fort George, British Columbia, Canada, on 1 November 1911, Kenneth Osborne Wright died of the effects of Parkinson's disease on 25 July 2002. He was educated at the University of Toronto, receiving a BA in 1933 (winning the Gold Medal awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada to the best student in the graduating astronomy class) and an MA in 1934. He then went to the University of Michigan, earning a PhD in 1940, having, however, already returned to Canada in 1936 to take up an appointment at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory (DAO) in Victoria. Except for short periods of leave of absence at the University of Toronto (1960–61), Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories (1962) and Amherst-Mount Holyoke Colleges (1962), Ken remained at the DAO until his retirement. He became Assistant Director in 1960 and Director in 1966, after the sudden death of Robert M Petrie. Ken retired in 1976. During 1943–44, being precluded from active war service by a defect in one eye, he also spent some time as a lecturer at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

When Ken arrived at the DAO virtually all work there was photographic stellar spectroscopy, with a growing emphasis on high spectral resolution. His own dominant interest, the structure and chemical abundances of stellar atmospheres, fitted well with the observatory programmes. He undertook curve-of-growth analyses of late-type stellar spectra, which led him to study the precision with which line intensities could be measured – a topic ideally suited to his temperament. While on his own admission Ken could sometimes be hasty and hot-tempered with colleagues, for stars and spectrograms he had almost endless patience, which showed at every stage of the work: focusing the spectrograph at the beginning of each night, careful guiding all night, or sometimes two or three consecutive nights, to obtain just one plate, and in the reduction of spectrograms.

With the early spectrographs in Victoria, multi-night exposures were necessary to record as far as possible into the ultraviolet. Reduction of photographic spectrograms was a two-stage process: first, the spectrogram was scanned with a microdensitometer of high spatial resolution to record the actual density on a long strip-chart recorder. Then density was converted into intensity by means of a suitable calibration, which itself posed one of the serious problems in analysing spectra. Calibrations were made in different ways at different observatories and the results were often at odds. Ken led the effort to encourage the construction of suitable calibration instruments and to establish procedures to guarantee that there were no systematic differences among observatories. Only then could stellar abundances be measured reliably.

Another important part of the work was the establishment of standard line intensities in stellar spectra. Ken undertook this during his 12 years as president of IAU Commission 29b on “Standard line intensities in stellar spectra”, publishing a definitive paper in 1963, in the DAO Publications, with the assistance of E K Lee and T V Jacobson and the collaboration of J L Greenstein. This paper is one of the most comprehensive discussions available of the variations of line intensities with spectral type along the main sequence. A second paper with T V Jacobson also considered the variations of line-intensity ratios with luminosity class in spectra of late types. Only with the development of modern photoelectric detectors with their inherent linearity and high sensitivity could this work be improved upon.

Ken also observed many of the eclipsing binaries composed of a small main-sequence hot star and supergiant companion. He used the light of the hot star to probe the physical conditions in the very extended and partially transparent supergiant atmosphere. This work began as an Observatory programme in the 1950s, but the premature deaths of Andrew McKellar and Robert Petrie left Ken as the last active observer of the original group. Study of these long-period systems also suited his particular kind of patience. His principal interest was in the partial phases of the eclipse and the structure of the supergiant atmosphere, but a by-product was often the determination of orbital elements; his orbital elements for VV Cephei remain the best available.

It was Ken's misfortune to be plunged into a senior administrative position at the time of sharp division within the Canadian astronomical community over the location of a proposed major new telescope. This division eventually led to the cancellation of the project amid fears, in some quarters, that Canadian astronomers would be denied access to large telescopes. Ken's persistence in supporting the efforts of G J Odgers to find alternative projects was a major factor in the eventual Canadian participation in the CFH Telescope and thus, indirectly, in the other large-telescope projects in which we are now involved. The difficulty of these times was increased for him by the illness and death of his first wife, Margaret, in 1969.

Ken was always ready to encourage amateur astronomers; he was active in the Victoria Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and national president of that society from 1964 to 1966. In the wider community he was an honorary professor of physics at the University of Victoria from 1965 to 1981 and served on the university senate from 1973 to 1978. He was for many years an elder of First United Church in Victoria. Among the honours he received, were election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1954 and an honorary degree of DSc from the Nicholas Copernicus University in Torun, bestowed in 1973 during the Extraordinary General Assembly of the IAU, held in Poland to celebrate the quincentenary of the birth of Copernicus.

Ken was twice married – to Margaret Sharp in 1937 and, after her death, to Jean Ellis, who died about a year before him. He is survived by a daughter from his first marriage, Nora Osborne. Astronomy and the DAO have changed much in the quarter-century since his retirement, but he left his mark on each of them.

Eberhart Jensen

Eberhart Jensen, a leading Norwegian astrophysicist, died in Bærum outside Oslo at the age of 80 on 16 January 2003. Eberhart was the foremost of a number of young astrophysicists, all students of Svein Rosseland, who led the expansion of astrophysical research in Norway in the 1950s and 60s, when the permanent staff of the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics of the University of Oslo grew from two to nine and major work was initiated in both theoretical and observational solar physics, and then continued it into the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Eberhart was born on a small farm in Røyken south of Oslo on 22 July 1922, and caught a strong interest for astronomy in early childhood. He started studying science at the University of Oslo in 1942, but his studies were interrupted quite violently when the German occupants closed the university on 30 November 1943 and arrested those male students whom they managed to catch, including Eberhart. In the following months they were sent to Germany and spent the time until early May 1945 in several different prison and concentration camps, including Buchenwald. Although treated better than most concentration camp prisoners – only 14 out of the 740 Norwegian students perished – the stay there made its mark on all who lived through the ordeal. One of Eberhart's favourite stories was how he reacted when, many years later, he told a famous German astronomer that he had been to Germany in 1944 and the astronomer asked him why he hadn't come by his institute in Freiburg for a visit.

Eberhart resumed his science studies in 1945, received the MSc degree in astronomy in 1949 and then left for the University of Chicago to study for a PhD under the supervision of Subramanyan Chandrasekhar. He received his PhD degree there in 1953. An anecdote tells that all the students were much in awe of Chandrasekhar, and that they especially feared the oral exam he always arranged for new graduate students. Therefore, when Eberhart came smiling into Chandra's office to be examined, Chandra asked him how he could look amused while all the other students looked terrified. Eberhart then told Chandra, still with a smile on his lips, that after having spent more than a year in concentration camps and having been interrogated by the Gestapo, he couldn't feel much fear for this little examination.

After his return to Norway, he was appointed university lecturer at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics of the University of Oslo in 1959 and reader in 1961. His PhD thesis had been within theoretical plasma physics, a field which Eberhart subsequently introduced in Norway. With support from Svein Rosseland and from Gunnar Randers, the director of the Norwegian Institute for Atomic Energy Research, Eberhart built up a strong research group on plasma and fusion research. With a solid background in theoretical plasma physics Eberhart made several significant contributions in his studies of the Sun. In 1955 he published his insightful work on subsurface magnetic buoyancy in the Sun and stars. This effect plays a fundamental role in the formation of sunspots. Eberhart published his result in the French Annales d'Astrophysique. Simultaneously and independently, the same result was derived by the American physicist Eugene Parker, who published his results in the more widely read Astrophysical Journal, and Eberhart's work was significantly less noticed.

In 1965 Eberhart succeeded Svein Rosseland in the chair of astronomy at the University of Oslo. Besides being director of the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics for a long period and editor of the Norwegian Almanac from 1966 to 1993, Eberhart continued his excellent scientific work within theoretical and observational solar physics and plasma physics. Maybe the best known among Eberhart's research achievements is his and Frank Orrall's discovery of the 3-minute oscillations in the solar chromosphere. In later years his research focused on the physics of solar prominences where he also derived results of fundamental importance.

Eberhart retired in 1992 and both his colleagues and he himself hoped that he would continue his active research and his involvement into the daily life of the institute for many years. Unfortunately, just two years into his retirement, he developed health problems which made research and involvement in the life of the institute impossible, and he died peacefully this January after several years of continually deteriorating health.

Eberhart had a great sense of humour; his colleagues and students remember most of all his laughter and his overwhelming enthusiasm for all of astronomy. In Fred Hoyle's 1957 novel The Black Cloud, one of the main characters is a young Norwegian astronomer with a good sense for jokes called Jensen. It is possible that Eberhart was the model for this character in more than the surname.

Besides science, Eberhart's main hobby was yachting; he was an active competition sailor and spent all vacations in a yacht, both along the long coast of Norway and in the Mediterranean. He is greatly missed by the whole astronomy community in Norway. Eberhart is survived by his wife Mona, four children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Eberhart Jensen was elected a Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 1965 and Fellow of the RAS in 1959.

Dr A G Coutts
Born: 27 September 1951
Elected: 9 July 1993

Dr E Jensen
Born: 22 July 1922
Elected: 11 December 1959
Died: 16 January 2003

Mr I Jurkevich
Born: 16 September 1928
Elected: 12 February 1960

The following were elected as Fellows of the Society on 14 February 2003:

Mr Philip Allen Banchory, Kincardineshire

Dr Karen Aplin Space & Science & Technology Dept, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

Mrs A M Barnard Kings Lynn, Norfolk

Miss Angela Beardsmore Canterbury, Kent

Mr Glenford Richard Bishop Exeter, Devon

Mr Marcus Cavalier Richmond, Surrey

Guy David Duckworth Didsbury, Manchester

Robin William Minto Hughes Richmond, Surrey

Dr David Kerridge British Geol. Soc., Edinburgh

Mr R Kingshott Worthing, West Sussex

L Körtvélyessy Klever Berg 21, D-47533, Germany

Dr James Kyle Gairloch, Scotland

Ms Pauline Leader Walthamstow, London

Dr K B Marvel American Astronomical Society, Washington DC, USA

Dr Nick Mee Upwey, Dorset

Dr Karl Mitchell Environmental Science Department, Lancaster University

Mr L Öpik MP House of Commons, London

Mr M Pinnock Physical Science Division, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge

Mr J A Rees Swansea, Wales

Dr Enikö Regös Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge

Mr Paul Ruffle Manchester

Mr Geoffrey M Sanderson Lincoln

Prof. Anvar Shukurov School of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Dr Soren-Aksel Sorensen Marlow, Buckinghamshire

Mr Roger Steer Wotton-Under-Edge, Gloucestershire

Lord Tanlaw London

Mr Norman Keith Turner Wembley, Middlesex

Mr Paul Jonathan Whiting Felixstowe, Suffolk