Edward C. Pickering

As director of the Harvard Observatory since 1876, Professor Edward Charles Pickering has long stood in the front rank of American astronomers. His work was international; he was constantly keeping in touch with foreign astronomers to compare and verify discoveries, and conducting an auxiliary station of his own observatory in Peru. Dr. Pickering’s eminent specialty was study of the solar spectra. He was the first to make the discovery that the spectra of certain stars, while usually appearing single were doubled at periodic intervals, and he was also the first to give the correct explanation—that they were really double stars, too near together to be separated even with the most powerful glass. This discovery of the “spectroscopic binaries” was recognized by astronomers as of high importance in the theory of cosmic evolution.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1920 Century Association Yearbook