Prof Don Osterbrock, of the University of California at Santa Cruz former director of the Lick Observatory had a heart attack and passed away yesterday, Jan 11th 2007.
There will be a shot remembrance at lunch today at UCSC, with a more formal celebration of his life to be scheduled at a later date.
A View of the Future As Seen From the Past
I just saw him in Santa Cruz three months ago, had a nice chat with him about spectroscopic variability of double AGNs and prospects for doing a broad search for close black hole binaries, he was really fired up about the new observing techniques now available.
Nice guy.
Great Astronomer
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Nice guy, for sure. One of the nicest in the field.
I first became acquainted with his work when I did interstellar medium physics in grad school, but I got to know Don later when I read his books on J. E. Keeler, G. E. Hale, and the Lick and Yerkes Observatories. I ended up doing some history of astronomy research projects from the era of early American astrophysics that he chronicled, and I talked/corresponded with him several times about this work.
He was an amazing resource, and tremendously supportive and encouraging throughout our interactions. I think most astronomers who have crossed paths with Don ofer the years feel the same way. He'll be missed.