Tribute to Hugo E. Schwarz

Hugo Schwarz, CTIO astronomer, died tragically in a motorcycle accident on the evening of Friday October 20.   Hugo was integral to all the activities of CTIO and his loss leaves an enormous gap that will be very difficult to fill.    He arrived at CTIO in 2000, following several years as Officer-in-Charge of the Nordic Optical telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands, where his energetic leadership and hands-on style were responsible for transforming it into one of the best-performing moderate-aperture telescopes in the world.  Prior to that Hugo worked in Chile at ESO La Silla, so his familiarity and deep understanding of Chilean life and culture made his transition back to La Serena and CTIO relatively seamless.    At the time of his arrival the SOAR telescope was under construction, and Hugo’s talents made him the perfect choice for deep involvement with SOAR as it transitioned from construction through commissioning to operations.   Formally, Hugo was the CTIO scientist assigned to SOAR, but he was much more than that, acting as Steve Heathcote’s indispensable right-hand-man through the whole difficult commissioning period.    He led the installation of site testing equipment on the Cerro Pachon site for the LSST and was in charge of the all-sky camera project, which produced instruments being used for TMT, GMT and LSST site-testing, and as an observing tool for most of the international observatories in Chile.   Hugo was also passionate about protection of observatory sites, and worked tirelessly with Pedro Sanhueza and Malcolm Smith to ensure the long-term viability of the Chilean observatories.  He had just become the President of Commission 50 of the International Astronomical Union, “Protection of Existing and Potential Observing sites”.   Even with all this activity, Hugo found time to keep up a strong research program on the late stages of stellar evolution, particularly planetary nebulae, with many collaborators and much student involvement.   Hugo didn’t neglect educational outreach either.  This was his final activity for CTIO - late on Friday afternoon Hugo came into my office after giving a talk to a visiting group of students from the University of Talca, joking that he had been presented with a pen in a smart polished wooden box, very much nicer than the one that had been given to Malcolm Smith!  This is so typically Hugo - he gave cheerfully and unstintingly, and was very very effective in all he did.   We shall miss him terribly.   At this time our hearts go out to Hugo’s wife Claudia and her children Maria Josefina and Diego, and Hugo’s children by his first marriage, Tamar and Jouke. 

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