Vocation : Science : Astronomy

Donald Edward Osterbrock (July 13, 1924 – January 11, 2007) was an American astronomer, best known for his work on star formation and on the history of astronomy.

Robert Benjamin Leighton (; September 10, 1919 – March 9, 1997) was a prominent American experimental physicist who spent his professional career at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). His work over the years spanned solid state physics, cosmic ray physics, the beginnings of modern particle physics, solar physics, the planets, infrared astronomy, and millimeter- and submillimeter-wave astronomy. In the latter four fields, his pioneering work opened up entirely new areas of research that subsequently developed into vigorous scientific communities.

Lawrence Hugh Aller (September 24, 1913 – March 16, 2003) was an American astronomer. He was born in Tacoma, Washington. He never finished high school and worked for a time as a gold miner. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1936 and went to graduate school at Harvard in 1937. There he obtained his master's degree in 1938 and his PhD in 1943. From 1943 to 1945 he worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of California Radiation Laboratory. He was an assistant professor at Indiana University from 1945 to 1948 and then an associate professor and professor at the University of Michigan until 1962. He moved to UCLA in 1962 and helped build its astronomy department. He was chair of the department from 1963 to 1968.His work concentrated on the chemical composition of stars and nebulae. He was one of the first astronomers to argue that some differences in stellar and nebular spectra were caused by differences in their chemical composition. Aller wrote a number of books, including Atoms, Stars, and Nebulae, the third edition of which was published in 1991 (ISBN 0-521-32512-9). He published 346 research papers between 1935 and 2004.
He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1961 and to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1962. He won the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship in 1992.
His doctoral students include James B. Kaler and William Liller.As of 2011, one of his three sons, Hugh Aller, was a professor and his daughter-in law, Margot Aller, a research scientist in the University of Michigan astronomy department. His granddaughter, Monique Aller, was previously a graduate student also in the University of Michigan astronomy department and teaches in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Georgia Southern University.

Bernard Ferdinand Lyot (27 February 1897 in Paris – 2 April 1952 in Cairo) was a French astronomer.

Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade (March 24, 1893 – June 25, 1960) was a German astronomer who worked in the United States from 1931 to 1959.

François Félix Tisserand (13 January 1845 – 20 October 1896) was a French astronomer.

Édouard Albert Roche (French: [edwaʁ albɛʁ ʁɔʃ]; 17 October 1820 – 27 April 1883) was a French astronomer and mathematician, who is best known for his work in the field of celestial mechanics. His name was given to the concepts of the Roche sphere, Roche limit, and Roche lobe. He also was the author of works in meteorology.

Victor Alexandre Puiseux (French: [pɥizø]; 16 April 1820 – 9 September 1883) was a French mathematician and astronomer. Puiseux series are named after him, as is in part the Bertrand–Diquet–Puiseux theorem. His work on algebraic functions and uniformization makes him a direct precursor of Bernhard Riemann, for what concerns the latter's work on this subject and his introduction of Riemann surfaces. He was also an accomplished amateur mountaineer. A peak in the French alps, which he climbed in 1848, is named after him.
A species of Israeli gecko, Ptyodactylus puiseuxi, is named in his honor.