Bernhard Hildebrandt Dawson (September 21, 1890 – June 18, 1960) was a U.S.-born

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

. He was born in

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more t ...

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

and earned a B.S. from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

, 1916. From 1913 onward, he worked at the La Plata Observatory, Argentina. In 1933 he was awarded a Ph.D. from Michigan with a thesis titled, "The System Beta 1000 Plus Delta 31". He was a professor at Faculdad de Ingeniería de San Juan from 1948 until 1955. His astronomical studies included southern double stars,

variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes systematically with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are ...

occultation An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden from the observer by another object that passes between them. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks f ...

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

s and

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

s. On November 8, 1942 he may have discovered Nova Puppis 1942. In 1958, he became the first president of the Asociación Argentina de Astronomía. The botanist, Genoveva Dawson, was his daughter. The asteroid 1829 Dawson is named after him, as is the crater Dawson on the

far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the hemisphere of the Moon that is facing away from Earth, the opposite hemisphere is the near side. It always has the same surface oriented away from Earth because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. C ...

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dawson, Bernhard Hildebrandt 1890 births 1960 deaths University of Michigan alumni American emigrants to Argentina 20th-century Argentine astronomers Burials at La Plata Cemetery