Alvan Clark (March 8, 1804 – August 19, 1887), born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, the descendant of a Cape Cod whaling family of English ancestry, was an American astronomer and telescope maker.

Alvan Clark
Born	(1804-03-08)March 8, 1804 Ashfield, Massachusetts
Died	August 19, 1887(1887-08-19) (aged 83)
Nationality	American
Awards	Lalande Prize (1862) Rumford Prize (1866)
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy

Biography

He started as a portrait painter and engraver (c.1830s-1850s), and at the age of 40 became involved in telescope making. Using glass blanks made by Chance Brothers of Birmingham and Feil-Mantois of Paris, his firm Alvan Clark & Sons ground lenses for refracting telescopes. Their lenses included the largest in the world at the time: the 18.5-inch (47 cm) at Dearborn Observatory at the Old University of Chicago (the lens was originally intended for Ole Miss), the two 26-inch (66 cm) telescopes at the United States Naval Observatory and McCormick Observatory, the 30-inch (76 cm) at Pulkovo Observatory (destroyed in the Siege of Leningrad; only the lens survives), the 36-inch (91 cm) telescope at Lick Observatory (still third-largest) and later the 40-inch (100 cm) at Yerkes Observatory, which remains the largest successful refracting telescope in the world.

Although not specifically searching for double stars, he did make a number of discoveries while testing his completed telescope objectives,[1] including Mu Herculis, 8 Sextantis, and 95 Ceti.[2] One of Clark's sons, Alvan Graham Clark, discovered the dim companion of Sirius. Two craters bear Clark Sr.'s name. The crater Clark on the Moon is jointly named for him and his son, Alvan Graham Clark, and one on Mars is named in his honour.[3] His other son was George Bassett Clark; both sons were partners in the firm.

Clark was also competitive in target shooting and received a patent for his device to allow bullets to be seated into a muzzle loading rifle without damage to either the bullet or the rifle's muzzle. Exclusive license to this patent (1,565 of April 24, 1840) was made to Edwin Wesson, brother of Daniel B. Wesson.[4]

In 1880, Clark was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.[5]

See also

• Alvan Clark & Sons
• List of astronomical instrument makers
• List of largest optical refracting telescopes

Image gallery

Portraits by Clark

• 
  Portrait of an unidentified woman, c. 1835 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
• 
  Portrait of John Pickering, c. 1840 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
• 
  Portrait of Samuel Hall Gregory, c. 1840s (Smithsonian)
• 
  Portrait of Joseph Story, 1846 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

References

• "Alvan Clark, Astronomy, Biographies". AllRefer.com. Archived from the original on 2004-06-23.
• Deborah Jean Warner & Robert B. Ariail (1995). Alvan Clark & Sons, Artists in Optics. ISBN 0-943396-46-8.

Further reading

• "Recent Deaths. Alvan Clark." Boston Daily Evening Transcript, 19 August 1887.
• "Autobiography of Alvan Clark." New-England Historical and Genealogical Register 43 (January 1889): 52-58.
• Raymond S. Dugan (1930). "Clark, Alvan". Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
• Warner, Deborah Jean. Alvan Clark & Sons, Artists in Optics. Washington, 1968.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alvan Clark.

• National Gallery of Art has works by Clark
• "Clark, Alvan" . The New Student's Reference Work . 1914.

На других языках

[de] Alvan Clark (Astronom)

[es] Alvan Clark

[fr] Alvan Clark

[it] Alvan Clark

[ru] Кларк, Элвин