Charles Hugh Smiley (September 6, 1903 â July 26, 1977) was an American astronomer and academic, and the author of a column on astronomy, "Planets and Stars" (Providence Journal, 1938âÂÂ1957). He was considered "one of the worldâÂÂs leading authorities on eclipses."
He attended UCLA and UC Berkeley, where he earned a B.A. mathematics degree in 1924. He received an M.A. (1925) and a Ph.D. (1927) from Berkeley, both in mathematics. He taught mathematics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (1927-9) and worked at the Royal Greenwich Observatory as a Guggenheim Fellow (1929âÂÂ30). He worked as a professor of mathematics at Brown University from 1930 onwards. He was Director of Ladd Observatory and served as chairman of the Department of Astronomy from 1938 until his retirement.
Smiley led fourteen expeditions to South America, Canada, Asia, and the US to study solar eclipses. He observed the solar eclipse of July 20, 1963 from a U.S. Air Force F-104D Starfighter supersonic aircraft that was "racing the moon's shadow" at extending the duration of totality. He also conducted several expeditions between 1947 and 1952 to study "atmospheric refraction at low angular altitudes." He also studied the Mayan calendar, and "was able to date the Mayan codices of Dresden, Paris, and Madrid from astronomical dates which they contained."
When the minor planet 1570 Brunonia was discovered on October 9, 1948, by Sylvain Arend at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Uccle, Belgium, Arend wrote to Smiley:<blockquote><div ><span style="color:#EEEEEE;"> â </span>This planet is named in honor of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. ... Its astronomical history dates back to the transit of Venus in 1769, observed by Prof. Benjamin West. Two local streets are named Planet and Transit. The naming of the planet is also a tribute to the international reputation of Dr. Smiley.</div></blockquote>
1613 Smiley, another minor planet discovered by Arend in 1950, is "Named in honor of Charles Smiley, interested mainly in orbit computations by Leuschner's method..."