Francis Gladheim Pease (1881 - 1938)

Francis Gladheim Pease

Francis Gladheim Pease was an American astronomer and optical instrument maker.

Pease graduated from the Armor Institute of Technology in Chicago, worked as an optician and observer at Yerkes Observatory, and from 1904 also made optical instruments at Mount Wilson Observatory, where he worked for 34 years. Pease designed a 100-inch telescope as well as a 50-foot interferometric telescope, with which he made direct measurements of the diameters of stars. He also participated in the development of the Hale telescope.

In 1928 he found the first planetary nebula in a globular cluster (M15), now cataloged as Pease. Francis Gladheim Pease also took very high quality photographs of the surface of the Moon, and a crater on this Earth satellite is named in his honor.