Symposium Fetes Campbell's 50th Year at College

Leon Campbell, Pickering Memorial Astronomer who has collected over one million observations on variable stars, will celebrate his fiftieth year at Harvard with a symposium at 8:15 p.m. tonight at the College Observatory.

Harlow Shapley, director of the Observatory, and several members of the Astronomy Department will speak at the meeting, which is sponsored by the amateur Bond Astronomical Club.

International Secretary

For the past 38 years, Campbell has served as secretary of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, a world-wide organization of amateur astronomers. He has collected data from almost every country on the earth during that time, and catalogued it all at the College Observatory.

When Campbell started his work, only 1,400 variable stars--stars that change in brightness--were known. Now over 12,000 are listed in his files, with another 8,000 probable. He recorded his millionth observation a few years ago.