Maurice (Moritz) Loewy (15 April 1833 – 15 October 1907) was a Frenchastronomer.
Loewy was born inVienna.[1] Loewy'sJewish parents moved toVienna in 1841 to escape theantisemitism of their home town.[citation needed] Loewy became an assistant at theVienna Observatory, working oncelestial mechanics. However, the institutions ofAustria-Hungary did not permit a Jew to advance to a senior position without renouncing his faith and embracingCatholicism. The director of the observatoryKarl L. Littrow was a correspondent ofUrbain Le Verrier, director of theParis Observatory and he secured a position there for Loewy in 1860. After going to France, Loewy become a naturalised French citizen.
He worked on theorbits ofasteroids andcomets and on the measurement oflongitude, improving the accuracy of theConnaissance des Temps. He also worked onoptics and the elimination of theaberration of light.
He was elected a member of theBureau des Longitudes in 1872 and of theAcadémie des Sciences in 1873.
Loewy became director of the Paris Observatory in 1896, reorganising the institution and establishing a department of physical astronomy. He further spent a decade working withPierre Puiseux on anatlas of theMoon composed of 10,000 photographs,L’Atlas photographique de la Lune (1910), the definitive basis for lunar geography for over half a century. The craterLoewy on theMoon is named after him and asteroid253 Mathilde is believed to be named after his wife.
He died inParis at a government meeting of a sudden and unanticipatedcardiac arrest.
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