Ladislaus Weinek

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Ladislaus Weinek

Ladislaus Weinek , Hungarian also Weinek László , (born February 13, 1848 in Ofen , Austrian Empire , † November 12, 1913 in Prague , Austria-Hungary ) was an Austro-Hungarian astronomer .

Life

He was born as the fourth child of Josef and Johanna Weinek. His father was an official in the Hungarian Ministry of Education. After Ladislaus Weinek graduated from grammar school in Ofen in 1865 with very good grades and received a scholarship, he studied mathematics, physics and astronomy at the University of Vienna . After a brief activity as an educator for Count Heinrich Wilczek, he completed his studies in 1870 with the grammar school teacher examination in mathematics and physics. Equipped with a travel grant from the Ministry of Culture, he studied astronomy for one and a half semesters at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin in 1871 , where he had close contacts with Wilhelm Foerster . He then continued his studies with Karl Christian Bruhns in Leipzig . As an observator at the Leipzig observatory , he participated in geodetic work such as determining the geographic difference in length between Leipzig and Großenhain and between Leipzig and Munich .

Elephant seals on Kerguelen, drawing by Ladislaus Weinek

In October 1869 the German commission for the observation of the passage of Venus of 1874 decided to carry out experiments with the photographic telescope in order to determine "whether and by which method solar images of sufficient sharpness and immutability could be produced and how they could be measured with sufficient certainty" . The main work was carried out by the geodesist Friedrich Paschen in Schwerin . Weinek was appointed deputy head of the Schwerin photographic research institute in 1873 and took over its management after Paschen's death. In the Schwerin palace garden he tried out the photographic processes to be used at the observatory set up there until the end of 1873 and in the spring of 1874 trained other participants in the planned German expeditions. In addition, he took advice from Hermann Carl Vogel at the Bothkamp observatory on solar photography and spent two months with August Winnecke at the University of Strasbourg at the beginning of 1874 to learn how to use the heliometer . On June 21, 1874 Weinek left the port of Kiel on the corvette SMS Gazelle , which brought the expedition, led by the astronomer Karl Börgen, to the Kerguelen archipelago in the Indian Ocean . On December 9th, the passage of Venus was observed and Weink documented it in 60 high quality photographs. The talented Weinek made drawings of the strange nature and landscape for later travel reports. After his return from the Kerguelen Islands, he became the main observer at the Leipzig observatory. In the following years, among other things, he carried out the measurement and discussion of all photographs taken by the German expeditions to observe the transit of Venus. He received his doctorate from the University of Jena in 1880 with the resulting treatise "Photography in measuring astronomy, especially in the transitions of Venus" .

Astronomical Tower of the Clementinum

When Heinrich Bruns took up his post as the new director of the Leipzig University Observatory in 1882 , Weinek submitted his resignation. After temporary work in the private observatory August Auerbach (1813-1886) in Gohlis and the observation of the recent transit of Venus on December 6, 1882 in the observatory of Baron Basilius von Engelhardt (1828-1915) in Dresden , Weinek was appointed professor of astronomy at the 1883 German Karl Ferdinand University in Prague . At the same time he became director of the university observatory in the Clementinum , which, however, was in a neglected state. Weinek's activity was therefore initially aimed at making structural improvements. The result was the new Meridian Room, from which Weinek from 1889 Polhöhenmessungen undertook to initially together with the observatories in Berlin, Potsdam and Strasbourg, later with many, including foreign observatories, the proof of by Karl Friedrich Küstner found precession of the Earth's axis to provide .

As early as 1890 Weinek had come out with forty elaborate moon drawings, which earned him great recognition. The Californian Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton , which had the largest refractor of the time, provided him with photographs of the moon enlarged up to 3000 times. Using an apparatus that he had the precision mechanic Gustav Heyde (1846–1930) made in Dresden, Weinek converted these into precise drawings. There were also photographs made available to him by the observatory of Columbia College in New York and, from 1893, slides of images of the moon that had been taken at the Paris observatory . A donation of US $ 1,000 from American millionaire Catherine Wolfe Bruce finally enabled him to publish a “Photographic Moon Atlas” from 1897 to 1900 made of 200 sheets on a 10-foot lunar scale.

After his short marriage, Weinek had married the opera singer Stephanie Bermann in the spring of 1885, who died on September 13 of the same year, Weinek lived very withdrawn and devoted himself exclusively to his work.

Honors

Weinek was accepted into the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1879 and into the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina in 1890 . The Berkeley University awarded him in 1893 the honorary doctorate .

A bay on Kerguelen and the moon crater Weinek are named after Weinek , as is the asteroid (7114) Weinek .

Fonts (selection)

  • Ladislaus Weinek: The photography in the measuring astronomy, in particular with Venus transitions . In: Nova Acta of the Ksl. Leop.-Carol.-Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher 70, 1879, pp. 33–148
  • Ladislaus Weinek: Enlarged Drawings from Lunar Photographs taken at the Lick Observatory . In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 3, 1891, pp. 333-344 ( online )
  • Ladislaus Weinek: Photographic moon atlas: mainly based on focal negatives from the Lick observatory on the scale of a moon diameter of 10 feet , Carl Bellmann, Prague 1897–1900
  • Ladislaus Weinek: Definitive results from the Prague pole height measurements from 1889 to 1892 and from 1895 to 1899 . Hasse, Prague 1903

literature

Web links

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Wikisource: Ladislaus Weinek  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Weinek, Ladislaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weinek, László
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austro-Hungarian astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1848
PLACE OF BIRTH Furnace , Austrian Empire
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1913
Place of death Prague