Gustav Spörer

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Friederich Wilhelm Gustav Spörer

Friederich Wilhelm Gustav Spörer (born October 23, 1822 in Berlin , † July 7, 1895 in Gießen ) was a German astronomer .

General

He did research in the field of sunspots and sunspot cycles. In this context he is often mentioned together with Edward Walter Maunder . Spörer first pointed out a period of low sunspot activity from 1645 to 1715. This is known today as the Maund Minimum .

Spörer was a contemporary of Richard Christopher Carrington , an English astronomer. Carrington is believed to have discovered Spörer's law , which describes the variation in latitude over the duration of a sunspot cycle. Spörer contributed to Carrington's research on sunspot migration. He is sometimes cited as the discoverer.

The spinner minimum he discovered was a period of low sunspot activity from around 1420 to 1570.

Life dates

Spörer attended the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Berlin from 1833 to 1840 and then studied mathematics and natural sciences at the Berlin Friedrich-Wilhelms University until 1843 . He received his doctorate under Johann Franz Encke on December 14, 1843 with a thesis on a comet from 1723.

From 1844 he worked at the New Berlin Observatory , whose first director was Encke. After acquiring the teaching qualification ("facultas docendi") he worked as a teacher for mathematics and science in Bromberg , Prenzlau and from 1849 at the municipal high school Anklam, there from 1855 as a senior teacher and from 1862 as a professor. During this time Spörer was also Otto Lilienthal's mathematics teacher .

In 1860 Spörer began astronomical observations on the city's powder tower in Anklam . In 1868 he received a telescope as a gift from Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. In 1865, Spörer wrote to Wilhelm Julius Foerster , Encke's successor as director of the Berlin observatory, with a letter mentioning Kirchhoff's spectral analysis . The establishment of the Potsdam Astrophysical Observatory goes back to Förster's suggestion . When it was founded in 1874, Spörer switched from teaching to the observatory in Potsdam. In 1882 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

After many years of activity as “1. Observator ”Spörer retired in 1894 and died only a year later. His place of work today bears the name "Spörer Tower".

The lunar crater Spörer is named after him.

Publications

  • numerous works in the Astronomische Nachrichten , 1861–1890 including:
  • "Observations of sunspots, by Dr. Spörer in Anclam. ”- Series of more than 50 works, 1861–1871
  • as well as work in: Publications of the Astrophysical Observatory in Potsdam , 1889
  • and Sirius - Journal of Popular Astronomy , 1869-91

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ List of members Leopoldina, Gustav Spörer
personal data
SURNAME Spörer, Gustav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Spörer, Friederich Wilhelm Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1822
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1895
Place of death to water