Sherburne Wesley Burnham

Sherburne Wesley Burnham (December 12 1838 – March 11 1921) was an American astronomer.

He worked at Yerkes Observatory. He worked during the day as a court reporter, except for four years as a full-time astronomer at Lick Observatory.

He served as a military stenographer in the Union Army in the Civil War. In 1873 – 1874, he produced a catalog of double stars. He became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He continued to identify double stars and later published the General Catalogue of 1290 Double Stars. He later increased this number to 13,665 double stars.

Burnham discovered the first example of, what would be called a-half century later, a Herbig-Haro object: Burnham's Nebula (now labeled as HH255.)

He received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1894.

The asteroid 834 Burnhamia was named in his honour.

External links

• Biography
• Note on Hind's Variable Nebula in Taurus, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 51, p. 94 (1890)
• Double star observations made with the thirty-six-inch and twelve-inch refractors of the Lick observatory, from August, 1888, to June, 1892, Publications of the Lick Observatory, Vol. 2, p. 175 (1894)