George Willis Ritchey was an American optician

Optician

An optician is a person who is trained to fill prescriptions for eye correction in the field of medicine, also known as a dispensing optician or optician, dispensing...

 and telescope maker and astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

 born at Tuppers Plains, Ohio

Tuppers Plains, Ohio

Tuppers Plains is an unincorporated community on the boundary of the Olive and Orange Townships of Meigs County, Ohio, United States. Although it is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 45783...

.

Ritchey was educated as a furniture maker. He coinvented the Ritchey-Chrétien

Ritchey-Chrétien telescope

A Ritchey–Chrétien telescope is a specialized Cassegrain telescope designed to eliminate coma, thus providing a large field of view compared to a more conventional configuration. An RCT has a hyperbolic primary and a hyperbolic secondary mirror. It was invented in the early 1910s by American...

(R-C) reflector telescope along with Henri Chrétien

Henri Chrétien

Henri Jacques Chrétien was a French astronomer and an inventor.Born in Paris, France, his most famous invention is the anamorphic widescreen process, that resulted in the CinemaScope, and the co-invention of the Ritchey-Chrétien telescope , which was anadvanced type of astronomical telescope, now...

. The R-C prescription remains the predominate optical design used by most all major astronomical observatories and space telescopes.

He played a major role in designing the mountings and making the mirrors of the 60 inches (1.5 m) and 100 inches (2.5 m) telescopes at Mount Wilson Observatory

Mount Wilson Observatory

The Mount Wilson Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The MWO is located on Mount Wilson, a 5,715 foot peak in the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, northeast of Los Angeles...

. He worked closely with George Ellery Hale

George Ellery Hale

George Ellery Hale was an American solar astronomer.-Biography:Hale was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was educated at MIT, at the Observatory of Harvard College, , and at Berlin . As an undergraduate at MIT, he is known for inventing the spectroheliograph, with which he made his discovery of...

.

The last reflector telescope produced by Ritchey remains in operation at the U.S. Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station

United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station

The United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station , is a scientific astronomical observatory operated as a Navy Echelon V command and the national dark-sky observing Facility/observatory subordinate to the United States Naval Observatory . USNO and NOFS are commands within the CNMOC claimancy,...

 in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Crater

Impact crater

In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...

s on Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

 and the Moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

were named in his honor.

Obituaries

• MNRAS 107 (1947) 36
• Obs 66 (1943-46) 268 (one sentence)