professor, astronomer, b. Madison. His family left Wisconsin when he was a child and eventually settled in Michigan. He graduated from the Univ. of Michigan (Ph.D., 1877), helping to finance his education by working part time as assistant engineer with the U.S. Lake Survey. In 1879 he returned to Madison to take a position under his former Michigan astronomy professor, James Craig Watson, who was then director of the Washburn Observatory at the Univ. of Wisconsin. While working as an assistant in the observatory (1879-1885), Comstock enrolled in the Univ. of Wisconsin Law School. He received his LL.B. in 1883 and was admitted to the bar, although he never practiced. He was professor of astronomy at Ohio State Univ. (1885-1887), and in 1887 returned to Wisconsin to become professor of astronomy and associate director of Washburn Observatory. In 1889 he was made director of the Observatory and held this position and that of astronomy professor until his retirement in 1922. He was dean of the graduate school of the university (1906-1920). As an astronomer, Comstock is most noted for his systematic study of double stars and his demonstration that intrinsic low luminosity rather than great distance from the earth accounts for the faintness of many stars and that hence a given volume of space contains many more faint stars than previously supposed. He also achieved a distinguished reputation as a teacher. Drawing on his experience as an engineer, he developed a course in practical astronomy for engineers, and his textbook, Field Astronomy for Engineers (1902), became the model for similar courses at other universities. He was author of several works on astronomy and published most of his research findings in the Publications of the Washburn Observatory. Dict. Amer. Biog.; Natl. Acad. Sci., Biog. Memoirs, 20 (1939); Who's Who in Amer., 18 (1934); Pub. Astron. Soc. Pacific, 46 (1934).Learn More
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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]
