Dr. W. E. Harper

Abstract

DR. WILLIAM EDMUND HABPBB, who died on June 14, at the age of sixty-two, had been director of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory since 1936. Dr. Harper was born in Ontario on March 20, 1878, and graduated from the University of Toronto in 1906. On that day he received word of his appointment to the staff of the Dominion Observatory at Ottawa. For thirteen years he was engaged there in the determination of the orbits of spectroscopic binaries, and on his transfer to Victoria, when the Government sponsored the 72-inch reflector, he continued the same work. In 1924 he was made assistant director, and finally director in 1936. From the time of his graduation until his death he was intimately associated with the development of astronomy in Canada. Before his death he had determined the orbits for more than a hundred binaries. No other astronomer has approached this number. His contributions to this part of astronomy constitute approximately one quarter of the known orbits. Among other major pieces of work were the determination of 1,100 spectroscopic parallaxes and the measurement of over 7,000 plates for radial velocity.