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14-07-2010
In Memoriam: Jaap Tinbergen (1934-2010)
| Submitter: | Lars Venema, Jan Willem Pel |
| Description: | We have lost our friend and colleague Jaap Tinbergen. In the international astronomical community, Jaap was especially famous for his expertise in optical polarimetry. His "Astronomical Polarimetry" (Cambridge University Press. 1996) has become a standard textbook, a testimony to his deep knowledge in this increasingly important area. After reading experimental physics in Cambridge and Birmingham he did a few years of ionosphere research in Antarctica. Not everyone has the temperament for long months of isolation with a small group, but Jaap was perfect. He came to Leiden in 1960 where he obtained his PhD under the supervision of Walraven in 1972. This took a little longer than usual because of his many years of secondment to the Leiden station in South Africa. For half a century, Jaap has been active in the development of astronomical instruments, especially for photometry and polarimetry. He was an old-fashioned user-developer, spending a lot of time observing with his own instruments at the observatories on La Palma and in Chile. From the start, he played an important role in the Kapteyn Sterrewacht Werkgroep (KSW) in Roden, the newly minted national centre for optical instrumentation. He moved there in 1983, at some personal sacrifice. Later, he followed the group to ASTRON in Dwingeloo (where he shared a room with Johan Hamaker, the equally famous expert on radio polarimetry). Despite a lingering, and finally fatal disease, he remained highly active after his retirement. Among other things, he contributed to the design of the revolutionary exo-planet finder SPHERE-ZIMPOL that is being built for the ESO VLT. He would have loved to help understand its results. Thanks for everything, Jaap, especially for being you. |
| Copyright: | ASTRON |
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