The collection consists of the research notes, correspondence, published manuscripts, and photographic materials of Gerald E. Kron, who was the Director of the United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station from 1965-1985.
Identification:
MS.8
Language:
Material in English
Repository:
Lowell Observatory
1400 West Mars Hill Road
Flagstaff, Arizona 86001
(928) 714-7083
E-Mail: archives@lowell.edu
Biographical Note
Gerald Kron was born April 6, 1913, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He earned his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1934 and his Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1938. During World War II, Kron worked at the MIT Radiation Laboratory and Caltech as a civilian scientist in the development of microwave radar. He then became head of the Special Devices Group at the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) at Inyokern, California, where he conducted studies on solid fuel rockets.
In 1946 Kron married astronomer Katherine Gordon. The Krons raised their five children at observatories around the world, including several long stints at Mt. Stromlo Observatory in Canberra, Australia. The couple worked together studying eclipsing binary stars and were the first to make a photometric observation of a stellar flare. Kron served as the director of the US Naval Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona from 1965-1973 and as a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian National University from 1974-1976.
Kron’s background in engineering led to his development of the Kron electronographic camera, an auto-guider for a telescope, and with Albert Whitford, an ultra-high vacuum valve. He contributed design specifications and construction ideas for the Shane 3-M telescope at Lick Observatory. The Kron camera was used by observatories to profile surface brightness of globular clusters and the surface photometry of galaxies.
Some of Kron’s research topics include the photometry of variable stars, stars of extreme luminosity (supergiants and late M dwarfs), demonstrating that the near-infrared light of the night sky was dominated by OH (as opposed to N2) emission, and measuring the brightness and color of the Sun on prevailing stellar photometric systems. Kron worked with Nicholas Mayall on the large-aperture photometry of galactic globular clusters and with Donald Shane determining the photometric depth of the Shane-Wirtanen galaxy counts and calibrating Fritz Zwicky’s magnitudes for bright galaxies.
Kron served as the President of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the President of IAU Commission No. 9 (Instrumentation), and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1985 the Krons retired to Honolulu, Hawaii, then to Sedona, Arizona in 1998. Gerald Kron died April 9, 2012.
Scope and Content
The Gerald Kron Papers contain research notes, correspondence, photographs, and glass plates. The collection is organized into three series: Correspondence, Manuscripts, and Working Papers.
The collection consists of Kron's notes and photographs of his work on solid fuel rockets as a civilian scientist during WWII; notes regarding Kron's development of instruments including the electronographic camera, the ultra-high vaccuum valve, and the Shane 3-M telescope; and correspondence with colleagues and friends.
Arrangement
This collection is organized into three series: Correspondence, Manuscripts (published papers), and Working Papers.
Please contact the archives to make an appointment before visiting the institution.
Conditions Governing Use
Unpublished and published manuscripts are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.
