George Ogden Abell was born on March 1, 1927. He pursued his science education at California Institute of Technology and worked as a teacher and astronomer at UCLA. He is known as a prominent astronomer, scientist, and skeptic for his work discovering astronomical features and debunking common misconceptions about pseudoscience, such as the paranormal.
Abell's most premier work was cataloging galaxy clusters which he collected during the Palomar Sky Survey. Through these catalogs, he disproved the current hierarchical model to show that second-order clustering existed in the clusters' formation and evolution. He innovated current models to show cluster luminosity as a tool to measure distance. In 1966 he collated a list of 86 planetary nebulae, one of which, Abell 39, is named for him. Among his discoveries was the supposition that planetary nebulae form from evolved red giant stars.
Abell's 1958 survey of galaxy clusters, the Northern Survey, has been augmented and renamed the "Abell catalog." This catalog shows around 4,000 clusters. The final list with added clusters from southern hemisphere skies was published after Abell's death by some of his contemporaries.
He was a president of the Cosmology Commission of the IAU and a president of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. In 1970, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Abell died October 7, 1983, but his legacy remains as a great astronomer and educator of young people, as he served as a UCLA Astronomy Department professor, of which he was elected chairman, and dedicated 20 years to teaching high school summer science camps. The summer camp offers a scholarship in his honor. Furthermore, Abell is the namesake of Asteroid 3449 Abell and The George Abell Observatory in Milton Keynes, England.
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