Records of the Harvard College Observatory Director Leo Goldberg

The Harvard College Observatory was founded in 1839 by the Harvard Corporation after decades of attempts to develop an observatory at Harvard University. Under the Observatory's first two directors, William Cranch Bond and his son, George Phillips Bond, the Observatory began an extensive study of the Orion Nebula and Saturn, discovering the eighth satellite of Saturn, Hyperion in 1848; and the dark inner ring of Saturn (the Crepe Ring) in 1850. Pioneers in astrophotography, the Bonds produced the first recognizable daguerreotype of the Moon and the star Vega in 1850; and the first photographic print of the Moon in 1857. The Observatory became the world's foremost producer of stellar spectra and magnitudes, established an observing station in Peru, and applied mass-production techniques to the analysis of data during the directorship of Edward C. Pickering from 1877 to 1919. Harlow Shapley, director of the Observatory in the 1950s, expanded the scope of the Observatory's galactic research tracking minor planets and asteroids in the Solar System and increasing its telescopic power with the establishment of the Oak Ridge station, also known as the George R. Agassiz Station, in Harvard, Massachusetts. In the 1960s and 1970s, Observatory directors Donald H. Menzel and Leo Goldberg maintained programs in solar and stellar astrophysics and space astronomy. In 1973, the Harvard College Observatory and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (founded in 1890) merged to form the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The Center is a research institute that carries on studies in astronomy, astrophysics, earth and space sciences, and science education.

Leopold “Leo” Goldberg (1913-1987), astronomer and astrophysicist, was director of the Harvard College Observatory from 1966 to 1971. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1934, remained at the University for graduate school to study under Observatory director Donald Howard Menzel, and earned his doctorate in 1938. Goldberg stayed at Harvard until 1941, when he left to work at the McMath-Hulbert Observatory in Detroit, Michigan.

During World War II, Goldberg worked as a consultant to the United States Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance, researching antiaircraft applications. After the war, in 1946, he worked at the University of Michigan as chair of the astronomy department and director of its observatory, where he remained until 1960. At this time, Goldberg returned to Harvard to teach and work at the Observatory, becoming its director in 1966, a role he maintained until 1971. After Harvard, he served as director of the Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona from 1971 until his retirement in 1977. Goldberg was also president of the American Astronomical Society from 1964 to 1966 and of the International Astronomical Union from 1971 to 1976. He died in 1987.