Ercole Dembowski

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Ercole Dembowski (January 12 1812January 19 1881) was an Italian astronomer.

He was born in Milan. He inherited the title of "Baron" as the son of one of Napoleon's generals (presumably Louis-Mathieu Dembowski aka Ludwik Mateusz Dembowski (17681812), a French general of Polish origin). He served in the navy of Austria-Hungary until 1843.

He was a tireless observer of double stars and made tens of thousands of micrometer measurements. In particular he remeasured many double stars from Friedrich Struve's Dorpat Catalogue, noting how some of them had changed position over the years due to their mutual orbit as binary stars.

He won the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1878.

A crater on the Moon is named after him.