Alan Hunter

Alan Hunter CBE (9 September 1912 East Ham, London – 11 December 1995) was an English astronomer who spent his career at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, serving as Director between 1973 and 1975. Early life Alan Hunter was born in East Ham, East London, on 9 September 1912. He attended East Ham Grammar School, then studied physics at Imperial College London from where he graduated with a BSc degree. He remained at the college as a research student studying spectroscopy, leading to the award of a PhD degree. Assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich Hunter was appointed an assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in 1937, at a time when the observatory was under the directorship of Sir Harold Spencer Jones, the Astronomer Royal. On 11 January 1935 Hunter was elected to the fellowship of the Royal Astronomical Society. Hunter served as head of the observatory's Department of Astrometry and Astrophysics from 1937 to 1956. In 1937 he married Joan Portnell. He worked on measuring the distances of stars using photography with the Greenwich 26-inch diameter refracting telescope. He also measured temperatures of stars using a 36-inch diameter reflecting telescope.