, 1910 Barnard observed the
gegenschein in 1882, not aware of earlier papers by
Theodor Brorsen and T. W. Backhouse. In 1889, he observed the moon
Iapetus pass behind
Saturn's rings. As he watched Iapetus pass through the space between Saturn's innermost rings and the planet itself, he saw a shadow pass over the moon. Although he did not realize it at the time, he had discovered proof of the "
spokes" of Saturn, dark shadows running perpendicular to the circular paths of the rings. These spokes were doubted at first, but confirmed by the spacecraft
Voyager 1. In 1892, he made observations of a
nova and was the first to notice the gaseous emissions, thus correctly deducing that it was a stellar explosion. The same year he also discovered
Amalthea, the fifth
moon of Jupiter. He was the first to discover a new moon of Jupiter since
Galileo Galilei in 1609. This was the last satellite discovered by direct visual observation (rather than by examining photographic plates or other recorded images). In 1895, he joined the
University of Chicago as
professor of astronomy. There he was able to use the telescope at
Yerkes Observatory. Much of his work during this period was taking
photographs of the
Milky Way. Together with
Max Wolf, he discovered that certain dark regions of the galaxy were actually clouds of gas and dust that obscured the more distant stars in the background. From 1905, his niece
Mary R. Calvert worked as his assistant and
computer. The faint
Barnard's Star is named for Edward Barnard after he discovered in 1916 that it had a large
proper motion relative to other stars. This is the
second nearest star system to the Sun, second only to the
Alpha Centauri system. He was also a pioneering
astrophotographer. His
Barnard Catalogue lists a series of
dark nebulae, known as Barnard objects, giving them numerical designations akin to the
Messier catalog. They begin with and end with Barnard 370. He published his initial list in a 1919 paper published in the
Astrophysical Journal, titled "On the Dark Markings of the Sky with a Catalogue of 182 such Objects". He died on February 6, 1923, in
Williams Bay, Wisconsin, and was buried in Nashville. After his death, many examples from his exceptional collection of astronomical photographs were published in 1927 as
A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way, this work having been finished by Mary R. Calvert and
Edwin B. Frost, then director of
Yerkes Observatory.
Comet discoveries Between 1881 and 1892, he discovered 15 comets, three of which were periodic, and co-discovered two others: •
C/1881 did not announce •
C/1881 S1 •
C/1882 R2 •
D/1884 O1 (Barnard 1) •
C/1885 N1 •
C/1885 X2 •
C/1886 T1 (Barnard–Hartwig) •
C/1887 B3 •
C/1887 D1 •
C/1887 J1 •
C/1888 U1 •
C/1888 R1 •
C/1889 G1 •
177P/Barnard (P/1889 M1, P/2006 M3, Barnard 2) •
C/1891 F1 (Barnard–Denning) •
C/1891 T1 •
D/1892 T1 (Barnard 3) – First comet to be discovered by photography; recovered in late 2008 as
206P/Barnard–Boattini ==Honors==