Bernard Lyot
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Bernard Ferdinand Lyot (February 27 1897 in Paris – April 2 1952 in Cairo) was a French astronomer.
He studied engineering, physics, and chemistry at the University of Paris, and from 1920 until his death he worked for the Meudon Observatory. He became a specialist in optics and created tools to investigate the polarization of light reflected from planets. He invented the Lyot filter, a birefringent optical filter.
During observations on Pic du Midi, he found that the lunar surface behaves like volcanic dust and that Mars has sandstorms.
Using polarimeters he improved the coronagraph he had previously invented, and he was the first to create motion pictures of solar prominences. Also, he found new spectral lines in the corona.
Honors
Awards
- Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1939.
- Bruce Medal in 1947.
- Henry Draper Medal in 1951.
Named for him
- Lyot crater on the Moon.
- Lyot crater on Mars.
- Minor planet 2452 Lyot.Template:Astronomer-stub