James E. Keeler pioneer astrophysicist

Abstract

In late December 1877 James E. Keeler appeared at Johns Hopkins University to begin his studies in physics and astronomy. He was a “raw country boy” from Florida, without benefit of a high‐school education. Twenty years later, an outstanding astronomer, he was appointed Director of Lick Observatory, the best‐known research institution of that era. Two years later he died unexpectedly of a stroke. Keeler had a brilliant career in astronomy and was, with his younger friend George Ellery Hale, one of the great American pioneers of the new science of astrophysics. His observational discoveries are described in every astronomical textbook today, although often his name is not mentioned, and the research techniques that he developed and the problems that he studied still form the basis of much of modern‐day astrophysics. The portrait on the opposite page shows him at the height of his career.