Piet van de Kamp
Piet van de Kamp, or Peter as he was called in America, arrived at the
University of Virginia on March 1, 1923 from the Astronomical Laboratory of Groningen,
Holland for a year's residence. His visit was made possible through grants from the
Draper Fund of the National
Academy of Sciences. He arrived at the Leander McCormick Observatory
under the leadership of Samuel Mitchell and
his extensive parallax program. In addition to assisting with the
parallax program, van de Kamp assisted Harold
Alden with the lengthy Boss star project. This proper motion work
determined that systematic errors predicted by Kapteyn were only
one-third the severity predicted and they published their results in
1924.
After one year at UVa, van de Kamp went to the Lick Observatory in California as a
Kellogg fellow. There he received his Ph.D. from the University of
California in Astronomy in June 1925. Meanwhile, back in Virginia, Alden
resigned his position to go to Yale's observatory in
South Africa. This left an open professorial position and a position
on the McCormick observatory staff.
In March of 1925, Mitchell began making arrangements for van de Kamp to
return to the University of Virginia. Van de Kamp returned October 1,
1925 to the title of Instructor and promised new living quarters. A
small cottage beside the observatory already housed Alexander Vyssotsky and Kovolenko, to which
was added another bedroom and another bathroom. The McCormick family
agreed to help pay for part of the addition along with the University.
His work consisted of assisting with the parallax program and continuing
the proper motion work that he and Alden had begun. Van de Kamp and
Vyssotsky spent eight years measuring 18,000 proper motions. He did
additional, smaller projects individually, including an investigation
for general and selective absorption of light within the galaxy. In
1928, he received a promotion from instructor to assistant
professor.
Van de Kamp was also a very talented musician. He helped to organize the
Observatory Mountain Orchestra (a precursor to the Charlottesville and
University Symphony), which he conducted and included fellow
astronomer Vyssotsky. He also composed music, both for the orchestra
and for the piano. His unpublished "Lullaby" can be found at
the Music
Library at the University of Virginia.

In the spring of 1937, van de Kamp resigned his position at the Leander
McCormick Observatory to take over as director of Swarthmore
College's Sproul Observatory. Fortunately, he did not sever all
ties with UVa. He returned on multiple occasions to deliver guest
lectures and meet with old friends at the University. He attended the
centennial celebration of the observatory held in 1985. (He is shown
left speaking at that event and at the right with Ruth Gienow.)
He arranged the loaning of equipment from the Sproul Observatory
to the University of Virginia when requested. He authored a biographical
memoir of Harold Alden for the National Academy of Sciences. He also
continued his love of music with the orchestra at Swarthmore
College.
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