Henry Hatfield

[Jeff Marsden]

As time marches on, inevitably those who have reached a certain age will also pass on. Those who were around in the sixties and seventies will remember the name of Cmdr. Henry Hatfield of Photographic Lunar Atlas fame who, it has been announced, died on April 1st.

{

BAA announcement:

It is with great sadness I have to report that Commander Henry Hatfield, a

long-standing BAA member who served the Association in many roles including

President, Treasurer and Secretary, passed away on April 1st.

His funeral will take place at 12 noon on Thursday 15th April 2010 at St

Thomas's Church, 14 Granville Road, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1ER. All are welcome.

A full appreciation of Henry Hatfield's life, his work for the BAA and his

contribution to amateur astronomy will be published in due course in the

Journal.

I am sure you will all wish to join me in extending our condolences to Henry

Hatfield's family.

David Boyd, President

}

Although I do not own a copy of his Lunar Atlas, rather strangely I picked it up from the library shelves of the Astronomy Centre last night, not knowing of his passing.

He, along with Henry Brinton, was mentioned in various books of Patrick Moore from those times. I recall the photograph of his 'Beehive' observatory but never saw a picture of his home built reflector. I have done Google searches in the recent past on both of these two men but without much luck. It would be interesting to know what has become of their telescopes, especially Brinton's as it was a well featured scope in several of Moore's books over the years.

Jeff

[steppenwolf]

This is sad news, I recently got him and Patrick Moore back in contact with one another when Patrick lost his contact details and remember his contribution to another interest of mine years ago when he reported on solar activity using his spectroheleograph as this had a direct relationship to long distance RF data communications, a field where I was doing pioneering work on error corrected short-wave communications.

[starbound]

Sad news, indeed. I have enjoyed his atlas in my studies on lunar features. I have two copies of the Hatfield atlas, one for my reflector and one for my SCT.

[RobH]

That is sad news indeed. I may have a few photos of him around which I'll have a look for.

To be honest, I assumed he had passed on many years ago, he must have been getting on a bit.

I raise a glass to his long and hopefully happy life

Rob

[Mark at Beaufort]

This morning I spent about 2 hours viewing the Moon through my 10" Flextube with my copy of Henry Hatfield's first edition lunar atlas. I bought this atlas in 1968 and he kindly signed it for me when I attended a BAA meeting over 42 years ago.

For interest I google his name today and I was really saddened that I found this thread to find that he had passed away this April 2010.

The lunar atlas provides wonderful photos through his home made 12" Newt and the drawings are so easy to follow. I know that the atlas was updated by Jeremy Cook (also deceased) for use with an SCT. But my personal atlas will always be treasured and I will salute HH when I use his atlas.

Mark

[Terry Byatt]

Cmdr Henry Hatfield was not only a gifted astronomer he was also a wonderfull man. I remember in the 1970's when I used to organise the BAA weekend courses at Horncastle in Lincolnshire he would drive up from his home in Sevenoaks and give talks and not even want a penny for his expenses. I was fortunate to be able to visit his observatory during that time and remember seeing the Sun in H-Alpha with his spectrohelioscope and his "Beehive" observatory. He made me and others most welcome with his kindness.

He generously gave his observatory and its telescope to Lancing College in Sussex when he retired from active astronomy.

He is sadly missed by all who knew him.