William Pendry Bidelman (1918-2011)

Abstract

William P. Bidelman--Editor of Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific from 1956 to 1961--passed away on 2011 May 3, at the age of 92. He was one of the last of the masters of visual stellar spectral classification and the identification of peculiar stars. I review his contributions to these subjects, including the discoveries of barium stars, hydrogen-deficient stars, high-galactic-latitude supergiants, stars with anomalous carbon content, and exotic chemical abundances in peculiar A and B stars. Bidelman was legendary for his encyclopedic knowledge of the stellar literature. He had a profound and inspirational influence on many colleagues and students. Some of the bizarre stellar phenomena he discovered remain unexplained to the present day.