John Beverley Oke *53

J. Beverley Oke, brilliant builder of astronomical instruments, died March 2, 2004, at his home in Victoria, British Columbia. He was 75. The cause was heart failure.

After attending the University of Toronto in the country of his birth, Bev came to Princeton for a PhD in astrophysical sciences. He taught at his alma mater for several years before joining Caltech, where he remained for 34 years. From 1970-78, Bev was also associate director of Caltech's Hale Observatories.

Bev contributed greatly to his field by devising instruments, equipment, and analytical techniques that allowed astronomers to derive increasingly detailed information about stars and other heavenly bodies observed with the world's largest telescopes. His work furnished data essential to astronomers' growing knowledge of galaxies, white dwarfs, and quasars. He developed a way to estimate accurately the temperature of a star. He invented a method of analyzing telescopic images of distant starlight that enabled scientists to reason their way more than 10 billion years back in time to when the light originated. His experimental achievements pushed astronomical imagination to new heights.

Bev is survived by his wife, Nancy, two sons, and two daughters.