Ralph Elmer Wilson

Ralph Elmer Wilson was an American astronomer.
Wilson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Herbert Couper Wilson and Mary B. Nichols. He earned his B.A. from Carleton College and entered the University of Virginia in 1906, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1910 based on his work at the Leander [Mccormick Observatory] working with Ormond Stone. He then worked at the Dudley Observatory, then at the Manuel [Foster Observatory|Lick southern station] in Santiago, Chile in 1913, and by 1939 at the Mount Wilson Observatory. In 1929, he became the associate editor of the Astronomical Journal. He was elected to the United States [National Academy of Sciences|National Academy of Sciences] in 1950.
He published multiple papers on stellar absolute magnitudes, proper motions, and radial velocities of various stars, along with binary star systems and orbital derivations of spectroscopic binaries. Among his publications was the General Catalogue of Stellar Radial Velocities in 1953.
The crater Wilson on the Moon is co-named for him, Alexander Wilson and Charles [Thomson Rees Wilson|Charles T. R. Wilson].