Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander | |
|---|---|
 Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, 1852 | |
| Born | (1799-03-22)22 March 1799 |
| Died | 17 February 1875(1875-02-17) (aged 75) Bonn, Kingdom of Prussia,German Empire |
| Citizenship | Prussia |
| Alma mater | University of Königsberg |
| Awards | Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society(1863) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy |
| Doctoral advisor | Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel |
Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander (22 March 1799 – 17 February 1875) was a Germanastronomer. He is known for his determinations ofstellar brightnesses, positions, and distances.
Argelander was born inMemel in theKingdom of Prussia (nowKlaipėda inLithuania), the son of a father ofFinnish descent, Johann Gottlieb Argelander, andGerman (Prussian) mother, Dorothea Wilhelmina Grünhagen.[1] He studied withFriedrich Bessel, whose assistant he became in 1820,[2] and obtained hisPh.D. in 1822 atUniversity of Königsberg. From 1823 until 1837, Argelander was the head of the Finnishobservatory, first inTurku and then inHelsinki. He then moved toBonn,Germany. There he designed and built a new observatory at theUniversity of Bonn with funding approved directly by KingFrederick William IV whom Argelander had become friends with in his childhood. This lifelong friendship had started when the then crown prince temporarily lived in Argelander's parents house after the Prussian royal family fled to Memel after theBattle of Jena–Auerstedt during theNapoleonic Wars.
Argelander excelled in developing effective, simple and fast methods for measuring star positions and magnitudes, thereby making a pioneering work for modern astronomy. He also measured star distances withheliometers. His, and his collaborators', great practical works of star cataloging and variable star research were made possible by the systematic usage of then newly developed techniques.[3]
Argelander was the first astronomer to begin a careful study ofvariable stars. Only a handful were known when he began, and he was responsible for introducing the modern system of identifying them.[4] He also made a rough determination of the direction in which theSun was moving.
In 1842, he discovered thatGroombridge 1830 had a very highproper motion. For many decades its proper motion was the highest known; today it still occupies third place. For a time, it was known asArgelander's Star.
Together withAdalbert Krüger andEduard Schönfeld, Argelander was responsible for thestar catalogue known as theBonner Durchmusterung, published between 1859 and 1862, which gave the positions and brightness of more than 324,000 stars, although it did not cover much of the southern half of the sky. This was the last star map to be published without the use of photography.
In 1863, Argelander helped lead in the founding of an international organization of astronomers named theAstronomische Gesellschaft.
Works by or aboutFriedrich Wilhelm Argelander atWikisource
