From: Steve Keil – skeil@nso.edu

Raymond N. Smartt

Raymond N. (Ray) Smartt, long-time National Solar Observatory scientist, passed away on 7 August 2010, in Newcastle, Australia, a few days after his 80th birthday. Ray was an optical physicist who made important contributions to coronal physics and served NSO as Deputy Director at Sac Peak in the 1980s and 1990s, supporting it with passion

Ray’s professional career started with the CSIRO in Sydney working with W.H.(Beatty) Steel and Ron Giovanelli, building a 1/8 Angstrom birefringent H-alpha filter (which after refurbishment is about to continue in SOLIS). He was one of a team of three people who built the first laser in Australia, and he personally produced the first hologram in Australia. He moved to the US in 1967, completed his Masters Degree at the University of Rochester and his PhD at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Observations of the Near-Infrared Solar Corona and a New Interferometric Telescope Test). He joined the Sacramento Peak Observatory (now part of NSO) in 1976 and retired from NSO in 2000, returning to his native Australia.

As a skilled optician, Ray developed (and obtained a patent for) the point-diffraction interferometer, made a number of innovations to Fabry-Perot filters used in solar physics, and in collaboration with Serge Koutchmy (following in the footsteps of Bernard Lyot and Jack Evans, and carried on by Jacques Beckers and Jeff Kuhn) he demonstrated the superb qualities of off-axis, all-reflecting coronagraphs leading to the design of the four-meter Advanced Technology Solar Telescope.

The corona remained the focus of his solar physics career during which he led a number of eclipse expeditions, obtained evidence of loop-loop reconnection events, and the structure of the magnetic field vector in prominences to name but a few of the many areas that he explored.

For nearly a decade, Ray served as Deputy Director of the National Solar Observatory for Sacramento Peak, a responsibility which he carried out with great humility and devotion to the resident, U.S. and international solar physics community. As chair of the Sac Peak Telescope Allocations Committee, Ray worked diligently to insure that every observing run was successful. Later, he played a major role in developing the Sac Peak Visitor’s Center, and particularly the scientific displays enjoyed by many tens of thousands of visitors every year. And no one who has passed through Sac Peak, will forget his magnificent garden with its huge dahlias.

Ray was an esteemed colleague and leading light in our profession and in our community. He will be sorely missed by the worldwide solar physics community to whose science he contributed greatly and whom he touched personally – and particularly by those of us who lived and worked closely with him at Sunspot.

With contributions from Veronique Bommier, Iraida Kim, Serge Koutchmy, Jeff Kuhn, John Leibacher, Bill Livingston, Priscilla Piano, John Smartt, Jean-Claude Vial, and Jack Zirker.