Hermann Carl Vogel

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Hermann Carl Vogel (1905)
Hermann Carl Vogel
Vogel's tombstone in Potsdam

Hermann Carl Vogel (born April 3, 1841 in Leipzig , † August 13, 1907 in Potsdam ) was a German astrophysicist . From 1882 to 1907 he was director of the Astrophysical Observatory Potsdam . He made far-reaching discoveries in connection with the spectral analysis of the stars.

Life

Hermann Carl Vogel was born in Leipzig in 1841. His father was Johann Karl Christoph Vogel , director of the united citizen schools and founder of the secondary school in Leipzig. His siblings included Eduard Vogel (1829–1856), Africa explorer and astronomer, Elise Polko (1823–1899), poet and singer, and Julie Dohmke (1827–1913), writer, editor and translator. Vogel began his studies at the Dresden Polytechnic in 1862 and moved to Leipzig University in 1863 . In Leipzig he was assistant to Karl Christian Bruhns and participated in the double star measurements of Friedrich Wilhelm Rudolf Engelmann .

Vogel received his doctorate in Jena in 1870 with a thesis on nebulae and star clusters and in the same year went to the Bothkamp observatory of Chamberlain Friedrich Gustav von Bülow , about 20 km south of Kiel . Here he carried out the first spectral studies on celestial bodies. Wilhelm Oswald Lohse became his assistant .

Vogel left the observatory in 1874 to work as an employee of the newly founded Astrophysical Observatory Potsdam (AOP), planning and setting up the institute's instrumentation. In this context, he went on a study trip to Great Britain in the summer of 1875 .

Vogel was director of the AOP from 1882 to 1907 and during this time developed it into one of the world's leading astrophysics institutes . Hermann Carl Vogel died in Potsdam in 1907. His grave is there on the south side of the large refractor in the Albert Einstein Science Park on Telegrafenberg .

Work areas

Vogel carried out spectroscopic studies of stars, planets , comets and our sun . In 1871 he was the first to demonstrate the rotation of the sun using the Doppler effect of the spectral lines .

He is considered the inventor of the photographic-spectroscopic radial velocity measurement on stars. With the help of this method he succeeded for the first time in 1889 in the discovery of spectroscopic binary stars (including the multiple star system Algol ). In 1892 he presented reliable data for a total of 51 stars.

The Doppler effect had done it to him on earth too. In 1875 he led the effect with the loud whistle of a German Borsig - locomotive also in the acoustic range.

Honors and memberships

Hermann Carl Vogel was a holder of the order Pour le mérite for science and arts and u. a. Member of the following learned societies:

In 1893 he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society . In 1906 he received the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art .

The asteroid (11762) Vogel , the lunar crater Vogel and the Mars crater Vogel are named after him.

Fonts (selection)

  • Observations of nebulae and star clusters on the six-legged refractor and twelve-legged equatoreal of the Leipzig observatory . Engelmann Leipzig 1867 ( digitized ).
  • Observations made at the observatory of Chamberlain von Bülow zu Bothkamp . 3 volumes. Engelmann, Leipzig 1872/73/75.
  • Investigations into the Spectra of the Planets: One of the Königl. Society of Sciences in Copenhagen awarded award script . Engelmann, Leipzig 1874.

literature

  • Elise Polko b. Vogel: Notes and letters about and by Dr. Carl Vogel, director of the community and secondary school in Leipzig. Leipzig 1863

Web links

References and comments

  1. Member entry of Hermann Vogel at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 18, 2016.