High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Robert Burnham, Jr. (June 16, 1931 March 20, 1993) was an American astronomer. He is best known for writing the classic three-volume Burnham's Celestial Handbook. Burnham was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1931. His family moved to Prescott, Arizona in 1940, and he graduated from high school there in 1949. That was the culmination of his formal education. Always a shy person, he had few friends, never married, and spent most of his time observing with his home-built telescope.