Morton is distinguished for his contributions to observational and instrumental optical astronomy. He was intimately concerned with both the Princeton rocket spectrographs end with the highly successful Copernicus satellite. With the former he obtained the first useful stellar spectra in the rocket ultra-violet, and from his results deduced the existence of stellar winds, now recognized as a major phenomenon in the evolution and atmospheric structure of giant stars generally. From the Copernicus results he made fundamental determinations of chemic abundances in the interstellar medium. During the time he has been its Director (since 1976) the Anglo-Australian Telescope has consolidated its position as the finest of the world's large telescopes, and has become the dominant influence in British and Australian optical astronomy.