Babcock, Harold Delos

Harold Delos Babcock, (born Jan. 24, 1882, Edgerton, Wis., U.S.—died April 8, 1968, Pasadena, Calif.), astronomer who with his son Horace Welcome Babcock invented (1951) the solar magnetograph, an instrument allowing detailed observation of the Sun’s magnetic field. With their magnetograph the Babcocks demonstrated the existence of the Sun’s general field and discovered magnetically variable stars. In 1959 Harold Babcock announced that the Sun reverses its magnetic polarity periodically. He was on the staff of Mount Wilson Observatory, California, from 1909, being semiretired from 1948.