The first European congress of astronomers took place in August 1798 at the Seeberg Observatory. It lasted around ten days. [1]
The first European congress of astronomers took place in August 1798 at the Seeberg Observatory. It lasted around ten days. [1]
The Seeberg Observatory, commissioned in 1790 by Franz Xaver von Zach, quickly became a centre of the European astronomical community. Zach corresponded with almost all colleagues in the field, and the observatory he designed was visited often because of its innovative features. [2]
At the beginning of 1798, the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande expressed a desire to visit Gotha Observatory, where he hoped to meet the Berlin astronomer Johann Elert Bode. Zach sent invitations to astronomy-related professionals; the meeting was scheduled for early August. [1] [2] Among the invitees were Taddäus Derfflinger (Kremsmünster), Barry (Mannheim), Rüdiger (Leipzig), M. A. David (Prague) and Strnadt. [2] In most cases, these invitations were received positively and supported by the respective sovereigns. However, some feared the influence of revolutionary French ideas. Jurij Vega from Vienna, who was invited by Lalande, was not allowed to travel to Gotha. [2] Johann Hieronymus Schroeter in Lilienthal and Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers in Bremen stayed away on their own initiative because they suspected that the metric system of units was being propagated. [1] [2]
These were the participants at the congress: [2]
Jérôme Lalande arrived at the Seeberg early, on 25 July, together with his niece, the astronomical calculator Marie-Jeanne de Lalande. Most of the other participants followed between the beginning of August and 9 August, when Bode arrived. Wurm and Huber arrived after Bode; Seyffer may have left before 9 August. [2] Zach could accommodate most of the participants in the observatory buildings, but some had to stay at the inn Zur Schelle on Gotha's Hauptmarkt square. On clear evenings, everyone gathered in the Seeberg Observatory for observations and discussions.
The scope of the discussions was broad. It was clear from the outset that only closer cooperation could secure the desired successes. Star atlases and the reduction of star positions for aberration and nutation were discussed. Several participants were working on star catalogues and atlases or contributed data. [2] The comparison of instruments brought along, especially chronometers and sextants, was a topic of discussion. An excursion to the Inselsberg on 14 August 1798 provided an opportunity for practical exercises. [2] Duchess Charlotte of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg also participated in this working trip.
The benefit of a common, decimal system of units (the metric system) and of a common time (Central European Time) was evident to those present, and they adopted these for their work. Introducing these more widely, beyond science, was politically difficult, as it was seen as a product of the French Revolution. [2] Proposals for new constellations were controversial among astronomers. Lalande and Bode had designed new constellations before and brought new proposals to the congress. Others, including Olbers, opposed new constellations. [2]
Astronomical journals were likely also discussed. [2] Although there was already the Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch , edited by Bode, this series of publications took too long to make new research results known. Further, comparatively little space was given to descriptive texts. Von Zach started editing the Allgemeine Geographische Ephemeriden the same year, 1798.
Not on the agenda were emerging fields like spectroscopy, or William Herschel's work on stellar statistics and the structure of the Milky Way. [2]
The social gathering was also not neglected. As the duke's brother, Prince August, reported, Lalande's niece's name day was celebrated with a banquet, dance and small cannon.
Johann Jakob Huber, who travelled from Basel, fell ill shortly after his arrival and died unexpectedly on 21 August. His son Daniel Huber, who was a mathematician and, like his father, an astronomer, arrived in Gotha and made the acquaintance of Lalande and other scholars. [3] By the end of August 1798 all participants had left.
A second congress was held in 1800 in Lilienthal, with six participants who, apart from von Zach, were not present in 1798. This meeting founded the Vereinigte Astronomische Gesellschaft, better known as the Celestial police. [2]
Eventually, European countries followed the scientists’ lead and adopted their standards for units and time. [2] New constellations met with gradually increasing opposition among astronomers but were abolished only in 1925 by the International Astronomical Union, when a variation of the spherical rectangles of John Herschel, Airy and Baily were implemented. [2]
The Astronomische Gesellschaft was founded in 1863 in Heidelberg. [2] On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the first European congress of astronomers, the Astronomische Gesellschaft held its 1998 spring meeting in Gotha. More than 120 astronomers from 15 countries attended. In honour of the anniversary, the asteroid (8130) Seeberg was named. [4]
A globe and a metric ruler, presented by Lalande, are among the memorabilia in the Gotha museum of regional history.
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the sun to another star by the method of parallax. Certain important mathematical functions were named Bessel functions after Bessel's death, though they had originally been discovered by Daniel Bernoulli before being generalised by Bessel.
Johann Elert Bode was a German astronomer known for his reformulation and popularisation of the Titius–Bode law. Bode determined the orbit of Uranus and suggested the planet's name.
Baron Franz Xaver von Zach was an Austrian astronomer born at Pest, Hungary.
Johann Franz Encke was a German astronomer. Among his activities, he worked on the calculation of the periods of comets and asteroids, measured the distance from the Earth to the Sun, and made observations of the planet Saturn.
Astronomical symbols are abstract pictorial symbols used to represent astronomical objects, theoretical constructs and observational events in European astronomy. The earliest forms of these symbols appear in Greek papyrus texts of late antiquity. The Byzantine codices in which many Greek papyrus texts were preserved continued and extended the inventory of astronomical symbols. New symbols have been invented to represent many planets and minor planets discovered in the 18th to the 21st centuries.
Karl Ludwig Harding was a German astronomer, who discovered Juno, the third asteroid of the main-belt in 1804.
Messier 102 is a galaxy listed in the Messier Catalogue that cannot be unambiguously identified. Its original discoverer Pierre Méchain retracted his discovery two years after publication and said that it was a duplicate observation of Messier 101. Later historical evidence favors that M102 is actually the galaxy NGC 5866, although other galaxies have been suggested as possible identities. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) considers it to be the same as NGC 5866.
Felis was a constellation created by French astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 1799. He chose the name partly because, as a cat lover, he felt sorry that there was not yet a cat among the constellations. It was between the constellations of Antlia and Hydra.
Quadrans Muralis was a constellation created by the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 1795. It depicted a wall-mounted quadrant with which he and his nephew Michel Lefrançois de Lalande had charted the celestial sphere, and was named Le Mural in the French atlas. It was between the constellations of Boötes and Draco, near the tail of Ursa Major, containing stars between β Bootis (Nekkar) and η Ursae Majoris (Alkaid).
The Berlin Observatory is a German astronomical institution with a series of observatories and related organizations in and around the city of Berlin in Germany, starting from the 18th century. It has its origins in 1700 when Gottfried Leibniz initiated the "Brandenburg Society of Science″ which would later (1744) become the Prussian Academy of Sciences. The Society had no observatory but nevertheless an astronomer, Gottfried Kirch, who observed from a private observatory in Berlin. A first small observatory was furnished in 1711, financing itself by calendrical computations.
Astronomische Nachrichten, one of the first international journals in the field of astronomy, was established in 1821 by the German astronomer Heinrich Christian Schumacher. It claims to be the oldest astronomical journal in the world that is still being published. The publication today specializes in articles on solar physics, extragalactic astronomy, cosmology, geophysics, and instrumentation for these fields. All articles are subject to peer review.
Karl Nikolaus Adalbert Krueger was a German astronomer. Born in Marienburg, Prussia, he was editor of Astronomische Nachrichten from 1881 until his death.
Gotha Observatory was a German astronomical observatory located on Seeberg hill near Gotha, Thuringia, Germany. Initially the observatory was dedicated to astrometry, geodetic and meteorological observation and tracking the time.
Johann Jakob Huber was a Swiss astronomer.
The Great Comet of 1819, officially designated as C/1819 N1, also known as Comet Tralles, was an exceptionally bright and easily visible comet, approaching an apparent magnitude of 1–2, discovered July 1, 1819 by the German astronomer Johann Georg Tralles in Berlin. It was the first comet analyzed using polarimetry, by French mathematician François Arago.
The Celestial police, officially the United Astronomical Society, was a cooperation of numerous European astronomers in the early 19th century. It is mainly known in relation to the search for objects expected between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was formed in 1800 at the second European congress of astronomers. At the first such congress, in 1798, the French mathematician Jérôme Lalande had called for a coordinated search, in which each participating observatory would patrol a particular part of the sky. The group confirmed or discovered the four largest minor planets, which would lead to the identification of the asteroid belt. They also initiated the compilation of better star catalogues and the investigation of variable stars. They pioneered international collaboration and communication in astronomy.
Julius August Koch was a German astronomer and physician.
Ferdinand Adolf Freiherr von Ende was a German lawyer and Württemberg Minister of Justice.
Johann Friedrich Wurm was a German teacher and astronomer.
Karl Felix (von) Seyffer was a German astronomer.