Bernard Lyot | |
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| Born | (1897-02-27)27 February 1897 Paris, France |
| Died | 2 April 1952(1952-04-02) (aged 55) Cairo, Egypt |
| Citizenship | France |
| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Known for | Solar astronomy Coronagraph Lyot depolarizer Lyot filter Lyot stop |
| Awards | Lalande Prize(1928) Prix Jules Janssen(1932) Howard N. Potts Medal(1942) Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society(1939) Henry Draper Medal(1951) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy |
Bernard Ferdinand Lyot (French pronunciation:[bɛʁnaʁfɛʁdinɑ̃ljo]2 7 February 1897 inParis – 2 April 1952 inCairo) was a Frenchastronomer.
An avid reader of the works ofCamille Flammarion, he became a member of theSociété Astronomique de France in 1915 and made his first observations using the society's telescope on rue Serpente in Paris.[1] He soon acquired a 4-inch (100 mm) telescope and soon upgraded to a 6-inch (150 mm). From graduation in 1918 until 1929, he worked as a demonstrator at theÉcole Polytechnique and studiedengineering,physics, andchemistry at theUniversity of Paris.
From 1920 until his death he worked for theMeudon Observatory, where in 1930 he earned the title ofJoint Astronomer of the Observatory. After gaining the title, he earned a reputation of being an expert of polarized and monochromatic light. Throughout the 1930s, he labored to perfect thecoronagraph, which he invented to observe thecorona without having to wait for a solar eclipse. Most of this work implied painstaking long observations at thePic du Midi Observatory. It was an exceptionally good site, free of both air pollution andlight pollution but it came with a disadvantage: In the interwar period access to the peak implied mountaineering skills and physical fitness, especially in winter when access was only gained with a long and tiresomeski touring trek on sealskin-fitted skis, a technique mastered by Lyot, a keen sportsman and mountaineer.[2] Accommodation on site can only be described as spartan, before a powerline, a bigger refuge and a cablecar were built in the early 1950s. In 1938, he showed a movie[3] of the corona in action to theInternational Astronomical Union. In 1939, he was elected to theFrench Academy of Sciences. He became Chief Astronomer at the Meudon Observatory in 1943 and received theBruce Medal in 1947.
Lyot was the President of theSociété astronomique de France, the French astronomical society, from 1945-1947.[4]
He suffered a heart attack while returning from an eclipse expedition in Sudan and died on 2 April 1952, at the age of 55.[5]
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