Solon Irving Bailey

Solon Irving Bailey Born December 29, 1854(1854-12-29) Lisbon, New Hampshire Died June 5, 1931(1931-06-05) Boston, Massachusetts Nationality American Fields Astronomy, photography Institutions Harvard University Alma mater Boston University Known for Establishing the Boyden Station

Asteroids discovered: 1

504 Cora, June 30, 1902

Solon Irving Bailey (December 29, 1854 – June 5, 1931) was an American astronomer.

He joined the staff of Harvard College Observatory in 1887.

After the observatory received the "Boyden Fund" bequest from the will of Uriah A. Boyden, Bailey played a major role in finding a site for "Boyden Station" in Arequipa, Peru, and was in charge of it from 1892 to 1919. He was also one of the first to carry out meteorological studies in Peru, traveling extensively in desolate areas at very high altitude. Boyden Station was moved to South Africa in 1927 due to better weather conditions and became known as the Boyden Observatory.

He made extensive studies of variable stars in globular clusters in the southern skies. He also measured the period of the light curve of 433 Eros during its 1903 opposition with great accuracy.

Bailey was acting director of Harvard College Observatory from 1919 to 1921 after the death of Edward Charles Pickering and prior to the appointment of Harlow Shapley. He worked as a senior colleague with Henrietta Swan Leavitt. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1892.

He discovered one asteroid: 504 Cora.

External links

• Harvard in Peru, Part I
• Harvard in Peru, Part II
• Harvard in Peru, Part III

Obituaries

• JRASC 25 (1931) 266 (one sentence)
• MNRAS 92 (1932) 263
• PASP 43 (1931) 317

Further reading

• Dieke, Sally (1970). "Bailey, Solon Irving". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 397–398. ISBN 0684101149.