Alexander Nikolajewitsch Deitsch

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Alexander Nikolajewitsch Deitsch ( Russian Александр Николаевич Дейч ; * December 19 July / December 31,  1899 greg. In Reni , Bessarabia Governorate ; † November 22, 1986 ) was a leading Soviet astronomer , doctor of physical-mathematical sciences, founder of the Soviet Union Astrographic school and member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). He discovered the asteroid (1148) Rarahu in 1929 .

Life

Deitsch was the son of a military man and spent his earliest childhood years in Reni. In Saratov he attended high school and then enrolled in the physical-mathematical faculty of the University of Saratov . Due to his material circumstances, he had to work as a clerk in the Union of Consumer Societies of Saratov Raion while studying. From May 1919, when he was drafted into the Red Army , he served as a clerk in the supply department of the 4th Army on the Ural Front. In October 1920 he began to work in Petrograd as a laboratory assistant at the Military Academy of the Red Army , where his father was also employed as a manager. At the same time he taught elementary mathematics in preparatory courses there. In January 1923 he was discharged from the army.

In 1923 he graduated from Petrograd University and began working as a mathematician under the astronomer Sergei Kostinski , the founder of Soviet astrophotography, at the Pulkovo Observatory . After Kostinski's death in 1936, he took over the management of the group for photographic astrometry in the astrophysics department. During the years of the Leningrad blockade , from 1941 to 1942 he held the position of director of the Pulkovo Observatory. In February 1942 he and his family were evacuated to Tashkent , where he continued his research and worked as a lecturer. After World War II, he helped rebuild the Pulkovo Observatory. In 1961 he was elected President of IAU Commission 24. Until 1981 he taught at Leningrad University in the subjects of photographic astrometry , double stars and approximate calculations .

His first independent work dealt with the determination of the exact position of asteroids and their photometric characteristics. He suggested using three short exposures instead of one long when photographing asteroids, which would increase the accuracy of their orientation. He also introduced catalogs , so-called “sky maps”, for the systematic recording of stars and the Schlesinger method for determining star parallaxes in Pulkowo . On July 5, 1929, he discovered the asteroid (1148) Rarahu and several variable stars . He determined the proper motion of around 18,000 stars in selected areas of Kapteyn and discovered two invisible companions of the double star 61 Cygni in the constellation Swan with periods of six and twelve years. Deitsch participated in three expeditions to observe complete solar eclipses in Sweden (1927), Omsk (1936) and Sortavala (1945) as well as two expeditions to determine the geographical length of the cities of Sverdlovsk , Tblissi (1930) and Arkhangelsk (1932). In 1935 he was awarded the academic degree of candidate of physical-mathematical sciences for the entirety of his work . In the 1950s, after the launch of the first artificial earth satellite Sputnik 1 , Deitsch developed a method for determining its coordinates. At the beginning of the 1970s he published work on the study of quasars using methods of photographic astrometry. His work The Core of the Galaxy was published as early as 1966 and made it possible to draw some preliminary conclusions about the physical nature of these objects. Deitsch is the author of more than 120 scientific papers.

The asteroid discovered by Lyudmila Tschernych (1792) Reni was named in his honor after Deitsch's hometown.

literature

  • NA Schacht: Alexander Nikolajewitsch Deitsch: On the 110th birthday . Ed .: Main Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Pulkowo, Saint Petersburg (Russian, online [PDF]). (PDF; 4.1 MB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander Nikolajewitsch Deitsch: For the 100th birthday. Pulkovo Observatory , accessed January 1, 2015 (Russian).
  2. ↑ a b Alexander Deutsch (1900–1986). Retrieved January 1, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Deitsch, Alexander Nikolajewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES German, Alexander; Дейч, Александр Николаевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Reni , Bessarabia Governorate
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 1986