James Keeler Biography

James Edward Keeler was an American astronomer born September 10, 1857 in La Salle, Illinois. As a child he attended public school until him and his family moved to Mayport, Florida in 1869 where he continued schooling at home. Before moving, he viewed a solar eclipse that swept across the nation. This astronomical phenomena had a substantial influence on James and his interests. When he moved to Florida he began surveying the night sky with his father and even built his own telescope which only made his interest in astronomy grow. When it came time to apply to university, Keeler was not accepted to either Harvard or Yale but he was accepted to Johns Hopkins University. There he majored in physics and German, but only minored in astronomy. He immediately jumped into the astronomy world after graduating, working at Lick Observatory in San Jose, California in 1888. While there, Keeler made observations of the corona of the sun and how animals react to the sudden darkness. His most important observation was that of the gap in Saturn's rings. He was actually the first to observe this gap, even before Johann Encke whom the gap is currently named after. The second major gap in the A Ring, discovered by Voyager, was named the Keeler Gap in his honor. Keller left San Jose for Pittsburgh because he was appointed as the director of Allegheny Observatory in 1891. It was there that he furthered his study of Saturn's rings, discovering that different parts of the rings reflect light with different Doppler shifts, due to their varied rates of orbit around the planet. This supported the belief that the rings are made up of many small objects, each orbiting at its own speed. Keeler returned to Lick Observatory as its director in 1898. From 1898 to 1900 he took many photographs of nebulae and clusters using the observatories 36-inch reflector telescope, discovered two asteroids, was awarded the Henry Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, and was elected president of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. James Edward Keeler died at the age of 42 on August 12, 1900 in San Francisco, California after suffering from two strokes. He left a widow, a daughter, and a son who followed in his footsteps.

After his untimely death, his colleagues compiled all of his photographs of nebulae and published them. Also, one of the asteroids that he discovered was named after him (asteroid 2261 Keeler) along with craters on Mars and the Moon. His Astrophysical Journal which he founded with George Hale remains a major journal of astronomy today, containing information regarding almost every discovered object in space. Now, his ashes rest in a crypt at the base of the Keeler Memorial telescope at the Allegheny Observatory where he is immortalized.