Born Gouda, Netherlands, 3 February 1894
Died Englewood, New Jersey, USA, 9 January 1982
Jan Schilt pioneered precise photographic stellar photometry measurements with a device now known eponymously as the Schilt photometer. Schilt did his undergraduate studies at the University of Utrecht, obtaining a BSc degree in 1915, and received his PhD from Groningen University in 1924 under Jacobus Kapteyn . He was an Assistant Astronomer at Leiden Observatory from 1922 to 1925. He and his wife emigrated to the United States in 1925. Schilt served first on the International Education Board at Mount Wilson Observatory and was then invited by Frank Schlesinger to Yale University, where he was Instructor and Assistant Professor from 1926 to 1931. In July 1931, he accepted a position as Associate Professor of Astronomy on the faculty of Columbia College and in the Faculty of Pure Science at Columbia University. He became Director of the Rutherfurd Observatory and the Head of the Astronomy...
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Selected References
Schilt, J. (1922).“A thermo-electric method of measuring photographic magnitudes,” Bulletin of the Astronomical Institutes of the Netherlands, 1, No. 10, 51–52.
— (1924) “On a Thermo-electric Method of Measuring Photographic Magnitudes,” Publications of the Kapteyn Astronomical Laboratory of Groningen, No. 32, 35. pp.
— (1926), “Two New Variable Stars of the Type of W Ursae Majoris,” Astrophysical Journal, 64, 215–224.
Sterken, C., Milone, E. F., & Young, A. T. (2011). “Precision and Accuracy,” in Astronomical Photometry: Past, Present, and Future, E. F. Milone & C. Sterken, eds. (New York: Springer), pp. 7–8.
Van de Kamp, P. (1982). “Jan Schilt,” Physics Today, 35, No. 6, pp. 67–68.
Acknowledgements
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of Jocelyn K. Wilk, Public Services Archivist, Columbia University Archives.
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Milone, E.F. (2014). Schilt, Jan. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_9396
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