Sidney van den Bergh

This article is about the astronomer. For Netherlands defense minister, see Sidney J. van den Bergh.

Sidney Van den Bergh, OC, FRS (born 20 May 1929, Wassenaar) is a retired Canadian astronomer.

Born in the Netherlands, son of businessman and politician Sidney James van den Bergh and grandson of Unilever co-founder Samuel van den Bergh, he showed an interest in science from an early age, learning to read with books on astronomy. In addition to being interested in astronomy, he also liked geology and archeology. His parents got him science books, a telescope, and a microscope, although they wished him to pursue a more practical career and only follow astronomy as a hobby. He went to Leiden University in the Netherlands from 1947–1948. He then attended Princeton University on scholarship where he received his A.B. in 1950. In December 1950, he was living in Columbus, Ohio and evidencing an interest in Astronomy. He obtained an M.Sc. from Ohio State University (1952) and a Dr. rer. nat. from the University of Göttingen (1956).

He took a faculty position at Ohio State University from 1956-1958 before moving to Toronto in 1958 where he spent the first part of his career at the David Dunlap Observatory (DDO) of the University of Toronto. At the DDO, he led innovations that included: expansion of the facilities, utilization of computers, and multicolor photometry. While his areas of focus have included the moon and other parts of the Solar System, he is best known for his work in extragalactic astronomy in which he has published original findings and reviews of nebulae, star clusters, variable stars, supernovae and more recently, an update to the estimated age of the universe. He discovered Andromeda II.

The second part of his career began in 1978 in Victoria, British Columbia, at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory where he was appointed director in 1977 and took office in 1978, remaining in that position until 1986 when he semi-retired and took the new role of principal research officer. He has served as President of the Canadian Astronomical Society and as Vice-President of the International Astronomical Union from 1972 to 1982.

Beginning in 1982, he started serving as chairman and president of the board of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation in Hawaii.

Honours

Awards

• Elected Fellow of the Royal Society (1988)
• First National Research Council President's Science Medal (1988)
• Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1990)
• Killam Prize (1990)
• Appointed officer of the Order of Canada (1994)
• Carlyle S. Beals Award (1998)
• Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal (2008)
• Gruber Cosmology Prize (2014)

Named after him

• Asteroid 4230 Van den Bergh
• Comet Van den Bergh (discovered by Van den Bergh in 1974)

External links

• Retired NRC Astronomer Wins Prestigious International Award