Wilson (Olin C.) Papers, 1930-1990

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Summary

Title:: Olin C. Wilson Papers
Dates:: 1930-1990
Creators:: Wilson, Olin C., 1909-1994.
Abstract:: This collection deals primarily with the professional activities of Olin C. Wilson (1909-1994), an astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory, who was most active from the mid-1930s into the 1980s.
Extent:: 4,372 pieces in 34 boxes.
Language:: English.
Preferred citation:: [Identification of item]. Olin C. Wilson Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection deals primarily with the professional activities of Olin Wilson, who was most active from the mid-1930s into the 1980s. It is organized alphabetically by author, and divided into two series: Series I, consisting of correspondence, primarily with other astronomers, which comprises the bulk of the collection (Boxes 1-32), and Series II, consisting of reports, which include a total of 39 items (Boxes 33-34).

The finding aid contains a heading for "Primary Reference," which refers to the principal author of the letter or report. The heading "Secondary Reference" serves as a general category of subject headings for items referenced in the letter, such as the organization to which the author belonged, the country of origin of the letter, etc.

Wilson corresponded frequently with astronomers from a variety of universities in the United States and abroad, and the collection is representative of the deeply international and collaborative nature of astronomical and astrophysical research in the second half of the twentieth century. It also contains valuable and insightful material related to the schism between Mount Wilson and CalTech in the 1970s and 1980s, and the near-demise of Mount Wilson during that decade.

The collection includes correspondence with such prominent astronomers as Walter Sydney Adams, Bernard William Bopp, Ira Sprague Bowen, David A. Thackery, Lawrence H. Aller, Robert Paul Kraft, and many other individuals, as well as considerable correspondence with the American Astronomical Society, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and other organizations.

Biographical / historical:

Olin Chaddock Wilson, Jr. was born in 1909, and joined the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1931 as a research assistant, and in 1936 became a staff member. He spent his entire professional career at Mt. Wilson. Wilson was educated as an undergraduate at the University of California and in 1934, received the first Ph.D. in Astronomy awarded by the California Institute of Technology, studying under Paul Merrill (whose papers are also held by the Huntington Library). Wilson's professional work was devoted to various phases of spectroscopy, including the stellar radial velocity program, various investigations of stellar atmospheres and interstellar material, Wolf-Rayet stars, planetary nebulae, and stellar chromospheres. By intensive analysis of the H and K lines of ionized calcium he showed that other stars besides the sun have cycles of activity. With M. K. Vainu Bappu, he found a means of determining luminosity, and thus distance, of stars from the widths of these two lines. Wilson started the HK Project, which continues to use Mt. Wilson telescopes to monitor a number of nearby stars in search of starspot cycles. He also investigated spectra of nebulae and eclipsing stars. In 1960, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He was also elected a member of the Division of Physical Sciences of the National Research Council, and a member of the U.S.A. National Committee of the International Astronomical Union. After his retirement in 1974, he continued his professional work as a Staff Member Emeritus of the Mount Wilson and Las Campanas Observatories. In 1984 he was awarded the Bruce Medal, an award for lifetime achievement in astronomy given by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Dr. Wilson passed away on July 14, 1994. His remains are buried outside the dome of the 100" telescope on Mt. Wilson. Congenial, fiercely independent, and firmly grounded in the virtues of experimental science, Olin Wilson was a canny practitioner of the art of the possible in observational astrophysics as it flourished in the middle of the 20th century. By the time of his death, stellar astrophysics had matured and had acquired new dimensions due to Wilson's diligence and curiosity.

Acquisition information:

Placed on permanent deposit in the Huntington Library by the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1988.

Arrangement:

Boxes 1-32 (Folders 1-11): Correspondence

Box 32 (Folders 8-17): Manuscripts, Documents, Ephemera, and Photographs

Boxes 33-34: Reports

Rules or conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Bibliography:

Oral history

Oral history interview with Olin C. Wilson, 11 July 1978. David Devorkin, interviewer. Interview conducted as part of the Sources for History of Modern Astrophysics (SHMA) Project, undertaken by the American Institute of Physics' Center for History of Physics.

Historical References

Griffin, R.F., "O.C. Wilson and His K-line Intensities," Observatory 118, 145-53 (1998).

Hearnshaw, J. B., The Analysis of Starlight (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1986)

Noyes, Robert W., "Olin C. Wilson and the Solar-Stellar Connection," in Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun, Proceedings of the 9th Cambridge Workshop, Held 3-6 October 1995 in Florence, Italy, Robert Pallavicini & Andrea K. Dupree, eds. (ASP Conference Series, San Francisco, 1996), p. 3-10.

Schrijver, Karel, "The Solar-Stellar Connection" http://canopy.lmsal.com/schryver/Public/homepage/solarstellar.html

Scientific Publications

Wilson, Olin C., Jr., "Three New Be Stars," PASP 44, 124-25 (1932).

Smith, Sinclair & Olin C. Wilson, Jr., "An Application of the Radiometer: a Registering Microphotometer," Ap.J 76, 117-23 (1932).

Merrill, Paul W. & Olin C. Wilson, Jr., "Comparison of the Paschen and the Balmer Series of Hydrogen Lines in Stellar Spectra," Ap.J 80, 19-50 (1934) [Wilson' doctoral dissertation].

Wilson, O.C., "The Analysis of Nova Emission Bands," Ap.J 80, 259-68 (1934).

Christie, William H., & O.C. Wilson, "Aurigae: the Structure of a Stellar Atmosphere," Ap.J 81, 426 (1935).

Wilson, O.C., "Absorption Lines due to an Expanding Star," Ap.J 82, 233-45 (1935).

Wilson, O.C., "Variations in the Spectrum of P Cygni," Ap.J 84, 296-302 (1936).

Merrill, Paul W., Roscoe F. Sanford, O.C. Wilson, & Cora G. Burwell, "Intensities and Displacements of Interstellar Lines," Ap.J 86, 274-310 (1937).

Sanford, Roscoe F., & O.C. Wilson, "On the Doublet Ratio of Interstellar H and K and the Absolute Magnitudes of Wolf-Rayet Stars," Ap.J 90, 235-43 (1939).

Wilson, O.C., "Possible Applications of Supernovae to the Study of the Nebular Red .Shifts," Ap.J 90, 634-36 (1939).

Wilson, O.C., "Physical Characteristics of the Wolf-Rayet Stars," Ap.J 91, 394-407 (1940).

Wilson, O.C., "On the Determination of Mass Ratios of Spectroscopic Binaries," Ap.J 93, 29-32 (1941).

Wilson, O.C., "Absolute Dimensions of a Wolf-Rayet Star and the Expanding-Envelope Hypothesis," Ap.J 95, 402-20 (1942).

Merrill, Paul W. & O.C. Wilson, "Components of Interstellar Sodium Lines," PASP 59, 132-33 (1947).

Wilson, O.C., "A Preliminary Lower Limit to the Ratio C12/C 13 in Interstellar Matter," PASP 60, 198-200 (1948).

Wilson, O.C., "A Survey of Internal Motions in the Planetary Nebulae," Ap.J 111, 279- 305 (1950).

Wilson, O.C. & Mary F. Coffeen, "The Mass of the Globular Cluster M92," Ap.J 119, 197-99 (1954).

Minkowski, R. & O.C. Wilson, "Proportionality of Nebular Red Shifts to Wave Length," Ap.J 123, 373-76 (1956).

Wilson, O.C., "The New Cassegrain Spectrograph for the Mount Wilson 60-Inch Telescope," PASP 68, 346-50 (1956).

Wilson, O.C. & M.K. Vainu Bappu, "H and K Emission in Late-Type Stars: Dependence of Line Width on Luminosity and Related Topics," Ap.J 125, 661-83 (1957). [reprinted in the centennial edition Ap.J 525C, 753 (1999) with a modern commentary by Jeffrey L. Linsky]

Wilson, O.C., "Limitations on Physical Theories of H and K Emission Lines," Ap.J 126, 525-28 (1957).

Hoyle, F. & O.C. Wilson, "Some Theoretical Aspects of H and K Emission in Late-Type Stars," Ap.J. 128, 604-15 (1958).

Wilson,O.C., "Internal Kinematics of the Planetary Nebulae," Revs. Mod. Phys. 30, 1025- 29 (1958).

Wilson, O.C., "A Color-Magnitude Diagram for Late-Type Stars Near the Sun," Ap.J 130, 496-98 (1959).

Wilson, O.C., "Accuracy of Absolute Magnitudes Derived from Widths of H and K Emission Components," Ap.J 130, 499-506 (1959).

Wilson, O.C., "A Suggested Mechanism for the Ejection of Matter from M-Type Stars," Ap.J 131, 75-82 (1960).

Wilson, O.C., "Lithium in a Main Sequence Star," PASP 75, 62-63 (1963).

Wilson, O.C., "A Probable Correlation Between Chromospheric Activity and Age in Main-Sequence Stars," Ap.J 138, 832-48 (1963).

Wilson, O.C., "Stellar Convection Zones, Chromospheres, and Rotation," Ap.J 144, 695- 708 (1966).

Wilson, O.C., "Absolute Magnitudes of Stars from Widths of Chromospheric Ca II Emission Lines," Ap.J 205, 823-40 (1976).

Keenan, Philip C. & Olin C. Wilson, "Effects of Heavy-Element Abundance on Spectroscopic Luminosities of GS-KO Giants," Ap.J. 214, 399-407 (1977).

Wilson, O.C., "Stellar Chromospheres for Fun and Profit," BAAS 9, 585 (1977) [abstract of Henry Norris Russell Lecture].

Wilson, O.C., "Chromospheric Variations in Main-Sequence Stars," Ap.J. 226, 379-96 (1978).

Vaughan, Arthur H., George W. Preston, & Olin C. Wilson, "Flux Measurements of CA II H and K Emission," PASP 90, 267-74 (1978).

Wilson, O.C., "Photoelectric Measures of Chromospheric H and K and Hε in Giant Stars," Ap.J. 257, 179-92 (1982).

Duncan, Douglas K., et al, "CA II H and K measurements made at Mount Wilson Observatory, 1966-1983," Ap.J. Supp. 76, 383-430 (1991).

Baliunas, S.L., et al, "Chromospheric Variations in Main-Sequence Stars. II," Ap.J. 438, 269-87 (1995).

Popular Publications

Wilson, O.C., A.H. Vaughan, & D. Mihalas, "The Activity Cycles of Stars," Scientific American 244, 104 (1981).

Wilson, 0., A. Vaughan, R. Kraft, & G. Preston, "Activity Cycles in Other Stars," Sky & Telescope 62, 312 (1981).

Indexed terms

Subjects:: Astronomers -- California, Southern -- Archives.
Astronomers -- Correspondence.
Astronomical spectroscopy.
Astronomy -- Research.
Interstellar matter.
Planetary nebulae.
Stars -- Atmospheres.
Stars -- Luminosity function.
Stars -- Rotation.
Stars -- Spectra.
Starspots.
Stellar activity.
Stellar chromospheres.
Wolf-Rayet stars.
Letters (correspondence) -- 20th century.
Technical reports -- 20th century.

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:: Finding aid prepared by Mel Larsen, Dan Lewis and Jennifer Martinez, March 2002.
Date Encoded:: Machine readable finding aid encoded by Diann Benti in May 2017 from PDF finding aid originally in the Huntington Digital Library.

Access and use

Restrictions:: Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.
Terms of access:: The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.

Preferred citation:: [Identification of item]. Olin C. Wilson Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Location of this collection:: Huntington Library, Manuscript Collections

1151 Oxford Road

San Marino, CA 91108, US

Contact:: (626) 405-2191

reference@huntington.org

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