• Source: Alvan Clark

Alvan Clark (March 8, 1804 – August 19, 1887), born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, was an American astronomer and telescope maker.




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, England, and Feil-Mantois of Paris, France, 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 originally intended for Ole Miss); also the two 26-inch (66 cm) telescopes at the United States Naval Observatory and McCormick Observatory, the 30-inch (76 cm) at Pulkovo Observatory, which was destroyed in the Siege of Leningrad (only the lens survives), the 36-inch (91 cm) telescope at Lick Observatory (still the 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, including Mu Herculis, 8 Sextantis, and 95 Ceti. 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. 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.
In 1880, Clark was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.




See also


List of astronomical instrument makers
List of largest optical refracting telescopes




Image gallery


Portraits by Clark





















References



"Alvan Clark, Astronomy, Biographies". AllRefer.com. Archived from the original on June 23, 2004.
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



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

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Observatorium Yerkes
• Mary Watson Whitney
• Observatorium Lowell
• Daftar kawah di Bulan, C-F
• 31 Januari
• Sirius
• Daftar ahli botani berdasarkan singkatan penulis
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• Alvan Clark
• Alvan Graham Clark
• Alvan Clark & Sons
• George Bassett Clark
• Clark (lunar crater)
• Albion College
• Cincinnati Observatory
• Lowell Observatory
• Percival Lowell
• Charles Sumner Tainter