Harlow Shapley, 1903-1977, American astronomer, was born in Syracuse, New York. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard in 1925. After serving as an instructor at Princeton University and at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, he became director of the Palomar Observatory in California in 1933
There he discovered the spiral nebulae (galaxies) located millions of light-years away and the intensities of quasars (quasi-stellar objects) far beyond the Milky Way galaxy. In 1935 he started a private observatory at Desert View, California, where he worked on infrared astronomy and on optical interferometry. In 1936 he joined the staff of Caltech.
In 1948 he was appointed president of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington D.C., a position he held until his death there in 1977.
Some piously record 'In the beginning God', but I say 'In the beginning hydrogen'.Harlow Shapley
No one trusts a model except the man who wrote it; everyone trusts an observation, except the man who made it.Harlow Shapley
The solar system is off center and consequently man is too ...Harlow Shapley
