Kasimir Graff

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Max Fenichel ; Kasimir Romuald Graff, ca.1928

Kasimir Romuald Graff (born February 7, 1878 in Próchnowo, Kolmar i. Posen district , Posen province ; † February 15, 1950 in Breitenfurt near Vienna ) was a German-Austrian astronomer .

Life

As the son of the landowner Stanislaus Graff and his wife Salomea geb. Hefft attended Graff from 1888 to 1897 at the Mariengymnasium in Posen, then Prussia . From 1897 he studied astronomy , physics , mathematics and geodesy at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin with Wilhelm Foerster , Julius Scheiner and Julius Bauschinger . 1901 doctorate he became Dr. phil. In the same year he went to the Hamburg observatory as an assistant . At that time it was still on Holstenwall and was under the direction of Richard Schorr . Since 1909 he has been an observer at the new observatory in Bergedorf , and in 1917 he became a professor at the University of Hamburg . In 1906/1907 he took part in a study trip to Russia and in 1914 in a solar eclipse expedition to the Crimea . During the First World War he was used as a geodesist and cartographer .

Appointment to Vienna and Beyer-Graff Star Atlas

In 1928 he followed the call of the University of Vienna to her chair for practical astronomy . As director of the Vienna University Observatory , he succeeded Josef von Hepperger . He was able to push through some improvements to the observatory equipment, such as the installation of a large lifting platform, which facilitated observation on the large refractor . The tedious lifting up and down on the height-adjustable "astronomical chair" was a thing of the past.

Graff was considered to be one of the best visual observers of his time. B. closely examined the turbulence in Jupiter's equatorial cloud formations . He was also a great promoter of popular scientific education and popular gastronomy .

As a result, in collaboration with the German amateur astronomer Max Beyer , the Beyer-Graff Star Atlas was created in the twenties , which for the first time recorded stars up to 9th size class in a handy format. 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 .

Forced retirement and reinstatement in 1945

After the annexation of Austria , Graff was immediately given leave of absence in April 1938 on the pretext of embezzlement and was finally forced into retirement for political reasons. The management of the observatory was initially taken over provisionally by Adalbert Prey , at that time holder of the chair for theoretical astronomy . On September 1, 1940, Bruno Thüring took over the management and chair of the observatory, a supporter of so-called "German physics" and a friend of the National Socialist science functionary Wilhelm Führer, who was dominating German astronomy at the time . The actual assumption of office took place on January 20, 1941, but Thuringia was only able to enforce the handover of the director's rooms on May 9, 1941 with an eviction suit against Graff. Thuringia, however, could not develop any lasting effect, as he was called up for arms service on March 15, 1943 and, despite numerous applications, could not achieve an indispensable position until the end of the war . The functions were again taken over by Prey, who is now 70 years old. After 1945 Graff was reinstated as director, whereupon he immediately moved back into the director's rooms and cleared out the legacies of his predecessor, which he carefully inventoried, from the "skull oil painting" to the "creamer with crack". But he was already approaching 70 himself and therefore retired on October 1, 1948.

Graff was a representative of a generation of visual observers, which was already dwindling at that time, who was gifted with great diligence and ability to accurately assess brightness and color and, with the help of supporting instruments he invented ( star and surface photometer , circular wedge photometer, star colorimeter ) , amassed a wealth of meticulously recorded observations could, although their evaluation and summary sometimes fell behind.

Honors

Graff was a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 1929 , he was also a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Commission for International Earth Surveying .

The moon crater Graff is named after him (but not the asteroid (3202) Graff ); Furthermore, in Breitenfurt near Vienna, where the astronomer lived with his wife, a street was named in honor of Graff.

Kasimir Graff was married to Frida Hoffmann (1876–1939) in Berlin in 1905, and in 1943 he married Maria Frank (* 1904). Both marriages remained childless. The asteroid (933) Susi , discovered in 1927 and named in honor of Graff's wife, suggests another first name for the first wife.

Fonts (selection)

  • Ground plan of the geographical location from astronomical observations (Berlin 1914)
  • with Hermann Lambrecht: Outline of Astrophysics (Leipzig 1928)
  • New reduction of Holetschek's fog catalog (Vienna 1948)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kasimir Graff: Formulas and help tables for the reduction of lunar observations and lunar photography for selenographic purposes. AW Schade, Berlin 1901, p. 49.
  2. ↑ Dissertation: Formulas and help tables for the reduction of moon observations and moon photography for selenographic purposes
  3. ^ Kerschbaum et al .: Die Wiener Universitätssternwarte and Bruno Thüring. 2006, PDF, p. 3 f.
  4. ^ Kerschbaum et al .: Die Wiener Universitätssternwarte and Bruno Thüring. 2006, PDF, p. 5
  5. ↑ Dictionary of minor planet names Vol. 1, Berlin & New York 2003, p. 83
  6. ↑ Meeting reports d. Akad. D. Knowledge in Vienna. Math.-nat. Kl. 2a, 156, pp. 94-128
personal data
SURNAME Graff, Casimir
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Graff, Kasimir Romuald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Austrian astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Próchnowo, Kolmar i. Poznan , Poznan Province
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1950
Place of death Breitenfurt near Vienna