Max Beyer

Max Beyer (born October 22, 1894 in Hamburg ; † November 14, 1982 there ) was a German amateur astronomer and vocational school teacher who was one of the world's leading visual comet watchers for over 40 years.

Services

Beyer's main interest was in observing comets . Through his persistent observation and his careful estimates of brightness , he succeeded in the early 1950s for the first time to prove a connection between the fluctuations in solar activity and the respective brightness of comets.

As a working tool, Beyer developed an easy-to-use method for estimating brightness during visual observation on a telescope, which is still known today in specialist circles. This technique, known as the extrafocal extinction method , is no longer used today due to proven inaccuracies.

During his observations in 1930, Beyer discovered the comet C / 1930 E1 named after him .

Beyer-Graff Star Atlas

From the collaboration with the Viennese professional astronomer Kasimir Graff , the Beyer-Graff Star Atlas was created in the mid-twenties , which for the first time recorded stars up to 9th size class in Germany. The work had three editions by 1950 and even received some attention among observers in the USA. One of these limiting magnitude reaching out sky atlas was created in 1962 with the photographic Falkenauer Atlas .

Life

Beyer's interest in the starry sky was aroused early on by his mother, who told her children "a lot about the sun, moon and stars" (according to an autobiographical note). As a high school student, Beyer owned a self-made eyeglass telescope.

After the First World War, in the course of which Beyer was wounded, he studied mathematics, physics and astronomy in Hamburg from 1919 to 1923 and passed the state examination for grammar schools in 1927. Even during his studies, he worked as a special school teacher.

Beyer was able to regularly observe the sky because he was apparently able to persuade the landlords of his apartments to agree to the establishment of self-built roof observatories.

During the Second World War, Beyer u. a. occupied with calculating the tides in a naval observatory. In 1939 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina Scholars' Academy . At the end of the war he was dismissed with the rank of corvette captain.

From 1946 Beyer worked as a vocational school teacher and later became head of the higher commercial school in Bergedorf. Moving into an apartment on the grounds of the Hamburg observatory in the Bergedorf district opened up close contact with the professional astronomical scientific community for him. So he had access to instruments of the observatory that he could use for his observations.

Beyer received various awards, one of which is the honorary doctorate awarded by the University of Hamburg in 1951.

As far as his health would allow, Beyer continued his observations into old age. In an obituary it says: "The fact that he was able to make surprisingly valuable observations despite modest aids was not only due to his immense diligence, but also to a sure feeling for what scientifically interesting problems were just technically achievable for him."

The American trade magazine Sky & Telescope listed him in 1988 among the most important amateur astronomers who have worked over the centuries. The asteroid (1611) Beyer was named after him in honor of his work . He had already discovered a comet in 1930 , which was also named after it.

Others

The observatory of the Society for Folk Astronomy , a Hamburg astronomical association , which existed in Hamburg-Bergedorf from 2003 to 2006 , was called the Max-Beyer-Observatory .

As far as it is preserved, Beyer's estate is collected and stored by Hamburg amateur astronomers Hartwig Lüthen and Christian Harder.

Fonts

• Physical observations of comets . Astronomische Nachrichten 250 (1933), p. 233. ( online )
• Photometric comet observations . Die Sterne 14 (1934), pp. 47-51.
• The influence of the sun on the brightness of comets . Naturwissenschaften 39 (1952), pp. 13-17.
• Proof and results of comet observations from the years 1921-1968 . Astronomische Nachrichten 291 (1969), pp. 257-264. ( online )
• Together with K. Graff: Stern-Atlas, containing all stars up to the 9th magnitude as well as the lighter star clusters and nebulae between the North Pole and 23 degrees south declination for 1855.0 . 3rd edition, Dümmler, Bonn 1950.

literature

• J. Larink: Obituary for Max Beyer . In: Communications from the Astronomical Society . No. 59 , 1983, pp. 5 . ( online )
• H. Lüthen, I. Ferrin, D. Green, J. Bortle: Max Beyer (1894-1982): A master of comet observation from Hamburg . In: Sternkieker . No. 192 , 2003, p. 12-18 .
• T. Williams: A Galaxy of Amateur Astronomers . In: Sky & Telescope . No. 76 , 1988, pp. 484-486 .
• Jochen Schramm (Ed.): Stars over Hamburg . 2nd revised and expanded edition. Kultur & Geschichtkontor, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-9811271-8-8 , p. 145 f .

Web links

• Literature by and about Max Beyer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Publications by M. Beyer in the Astrophysics Data System