Frederick Hanley Seares (May 17, 1873 – July 20, 1964) was anAmericanastronomer. He worked atMount Wilson Observatory and won theBruce Medal in 1940.
Seares was born inMichigan in 1873 and grew up inIowa andsouthern California. He earned hisBachelor of Sciencedegree at theUniversity of California and later studied inParis andBerlin. Later Seares taught and researchedcomets andvariable stars for eight years at theUniversity of Missouri inColumbia, Missouri (whereHarlow Shapley studied under him). In 1909, Seares joined the Mount Wilson Observatory, where he remained for 36 years, 15 of them as assistant director.
Seares was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1917 and the United StatesNational Academy of Sciences in 1919.[1][2] He served as president of theAstronomical Society of the Pacific in 1929.
Seares usedastrophotography as part ofJacobus Kapteyn's effort to uncover the structure of thesidereal universe through research of "selected areas." Seares standardized thestellar magnitude system and extended it beyond the 18th magnitude, using absorbing wire gauze screens and reducedapertures to compare stars of varyingbrightnesses. Seares also made contributions to the measurement and interpretation of stellar color indices and wrote on the brightness of theMilky Way compared tospiral nebulae, which were hypothesized (but not yet fully established) to be othergalaxies.
Seares also studied interstellarabsorption and reddening of starlight.
Seares died in 1964. ThecraterSeares on theMoon is named after him.
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