Gordon Stanley, 80; Built, Directed Radio Observatory at Caltech

Gordon James Stanley, 80, radio astronomer and engineer who helped establish and for many years directed Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory, died Dec. 17 in Monterey of progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare condition related to Parkinson’s disease.

Born in Cambridge, New Zealand, Stanley began working in radio astronomy in Australia with the late John Bolton. In 1947, the two discovered the Cygnus A radio source in outer space, prompting Stanley to write: “The most memorable moment of our association occurred when we first saw interference fringes from Cygnus A. . . . Neither of us ever approached such an emotional high again in our work.”

Stanley followed Bolton to Caltech in 1955 and over the next five years the two built the first two radio telescope interferometers to measure wavelengths of light. Bolton returned to Australia, but Stanley stayed on and served as director of the Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory from 1961 to 1975. He supervised construction of a third radio telescope 130 feet in diameter, which aided astronomers in studying the universe.

Late in his career, Stanley adapted interferometers for such projects as measuring sea-ice temperature for the University of Washington and measuring the upper atmospheric temperature for the Japanese government.