Arthur Auwers

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Arthur Auwers
Arthur Auwers in 1884
Born	(1838-09-12)12 September 1838 Göttingen
Died	24 January 1915(1915-01-24) (aged 76) Berlin
Nationality	German
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy

Georg Friedrich Julius Arthur von Auwers (12 September 1838 – 24 January 1915) was a German astronomer. Auwers was born in Göttingen to Gottfried Daniel Auwers and Emma Christiane Sophie (née Borkenstein).^[1]

He attended the University of Göttingen and worked at the University of Königsberg. He specialized in astrometry, making very precise measurements of stellar positions and motions. He detected the companion stars of Sirius and Procyon from their effects on the main star's motion, before telescopes were powerful enough to visually observe them. He was from 1866 Secretary to the Berlin Academy, and directed expeditions to measure the transits of Venus, in order to measure the distance from the earth to the Sun more accurately, and therefore be able to calculate the dimensions of the Solar System more accurately and with greater precision. He began a project to unify all available sky charts, an interest that began with his catalog of nebulae which he published in 1862. He died in Berlin. His grave is preserved in the Protestant Friedhof I der Jerusalems- und Neuen Kirchengemeinde (Cemetery No. I of the congregations of Jerusalem's Church and New Church) in Berlin-Kreuzberg, south of Hallesches Tor.

His son Karl von Auwers became a well known chemist and discoverer of the Auwers synthesis.

Honors[]

Awards

• Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1880)^[2]
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1888)
• James Craig Watson Medal (1891)
• Bruce Medal (1899)
• The crater Auwers on the Moon is named after him

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Arthur Auwers.

• Bruce Medal page
• Awarding of Bruce Medal
• Awarding of RAS Gold Medal

Obituaries[]

• AN 200 (1915) 185/186 (in German)
• MNRAS 76 (1916) 284
• Obs 38 (1915) 177

Further reading[]

• Sticker, Bernhard (1970). "Auwers, Arthur Julius Georg Friedrich von". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 339–340. ISBN 0-684-10114-9.

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