Ronald Weinberger

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ronald Weinberger (2017)

Ronald Weinberger (born May 31, 1948 in Bad Schallerbach , Upper Austria ) is an Austrian astronomer and writer.

Life

Ronald Weinberger attended the Bundesrealgymnasium Wels, studied astronomy at the University of Vienna from 1967 (minor subject physics) and received his doctorate there at the end of 1972. From 1973 to 1976 he was a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg. From 1977 until he retired in December 2011, Weinberger worked as a specialist astronomer at the University of Innsbruck at the Institute for Astronomy (now the Institute for Astro and Particle Physics). In 1983 he received his habilitation, and in 1992 his tit. ao. University professor appointed. He worked as head of the institute from 1999 to 2003 and as a board member from 2000 to 2006 in the Astronomical Society .

Weinberger was active in public relations earlier than the majority of scientists working at Austrian universities . Not only in his subject, but also as a media officer of the then natural science faculty of the University of Innsbruck, he succeeded in sensitizing the universities to this today essential external presentation.

Weinberger has been a writer since 2008, preferring to write humorous, sometimes weird, poetry in rhymes. Short poems and aphorisms from his poetry book 199 + 1 absurd & silly rhymes, which appeared in 2016, gained fame throughout Austria from the beginning of 2020, as they were often broadcast by the passenger TV station INFOSCREEN Austria (daily reach, according to media analysis 2018/19, over 800,000 people) .

Research and Activities

As a scientist

Weinberger worked in Heidelberg primarily in infrared astronomy , which was then in the process of being developed and which is necessary for understanding star formation. During these 4 years, on his own initiative, he also began a systematic scientific survey of previously undiscovered non-stellar celestial objects on the best internationally available sky map material at the time, the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS). It resulted in a number of objects from the categories of planetary nebulae (ie nebulae around dying stars) and galaxies shimmering in unexpected places through our Milky Way .

During his entire later professional career at the University of Innsbruck, Weinberger focused on the two categories mentioned above. To this end, he initiated an exact survey of the POSS and additional material carried out by himself and several colleagues over many years , which led to over 100 newly discovered planetary nebulae, thousands of the above-mentioned galaxies, as well as some rarely encountered celestial objects. A number of the most interesting new discoveries were then examined more closely at various observatories.

Consequences of the successful discovery of and research on planetary nebulae (PN) in Innsbruck were in particular: a) The (for Austria first) staging of a high-level symposium of the International Astronomical Union in Innsbruck in 1992; b) an invitation to a review article in the science journal Science and c) the permanent designation of the PN found in Innsbruck with abbreviations of the names of the discoverers, e.g. B. We 1-10 (also called "Weinberger 1-10"), PuWe 1, HDW 3 and much more by the astronomical scientific community. The approximately 200 special galaxies initially discovered by Weinberger also found their way into the specialist literature as "Weinberger galaxies".

As a writer

None of the previous non-fiction and poetry books turned out to be a crowd-puller, although the non-fiction book Is our time calculation still up-to-date? was commented extensively in several Austrian media. A non-fiction book spiced with linguistic humor about the hygienic behavior of men appeared under the pseudonym Uri Har in summer 2020. A humorous compilation of idioms, mostly converted into pictures, as well as Weinberger's numerous Dadaistic and cosmic-comic poems have remained unpublished until now.

Awards

  • 1987 Prize of the state capital Innsbruck for scientific research
  • 1989 Culture Prize of the State of Upper Austria for Science
  • 1997 Bad Schallerbach community award for science
  • 1999 Liechtenstein Prize for Scientific Research

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 199 + 1 absurd & silly rhymes
  2. ^ R. Weinberger: A list of possible, probable, and true planetary nebulae detected since 1966 . In: Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Series 30, pp. 335-341 (1977). [1] .
  3. ^ R. Weinberger: New planetary nebulae of low surface brightness . In: Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Series 30, pp. 343-348 (1977). [2] .
  4. ^ J. Dengel, H. Hartl, R. Weinberger: A search for planetary nebulae on the "POSS" . In: Astron. Astrophys. 85, pp. 356-358 (1980). [3] .
  5. ^ R. Weinberger, F. Sabbadin: Detection of six new extended planetary nebulae by means of interference filter photography . In: Astron. Astrophys. 100, pp. 66-67 (1981). [4] .
  6. ^ D. Melmer, R. Weinberger: New old PN in the Southern Sky . In: Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 243, pp. 236-240 (1990). [5] .
  7. ^ R. Weinberger: Galaxies near the northern galactic plane . In: Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Series 40, pp. 123-127 (1980). [6] .
  8. ^ R. Seeberger, W. Saurer, R. Weinberger: Penetrating the zone of avoidance II: optically detected galaxies in the region 180 ° ≤ l ≤ 240 ° . In: Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Series 117, pp. 1-11 (1996). [7] .
  9. ^ W. Saurer, R. Seeberger, R. Weinberger: Penetrating the Zone of Avoidance IV: an optical survey for hidden galaxies in the region 130 ° ≤ l ≤ 180 °, −5 ° ≤ b ≤ + 5 ° . In: Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Series 126, pp. 247-250 (1997). [8] .
  10. ^ R. Weinberger: New interesting objects discovered in optical sky surveys . In: Publ. Astron. Soc. Pac. 107, pp. 58-61 (1995). [9] .
  11. ^ C. Zanin, R. Weinberger: The "Criss-Cross Nebula": an interaction of the Orion-Eridanus Bubble with a small interstellar cloud . In: Astron. Astrophys. 324, pp. 1165-1169 (1997). [10] .
  12. ^ AA Zijlstra, R. Weinberger: A wall of dust around a proto-Mira? In: Astrophys. J. 572, pp. 1006-1011 (2002). [11] .
  13. ↑ G. Temporin, R. Weinberger: An uncatalogued optical HII region in the outskirts of the Galaxy . In: Astron. Astrophys. 420, pp. 225-232 (2004). [12] .
  14. ^ R. Weinberger, F. Kerber: Planetary nebulae: understanding the physical and chemical evolution of dying stars . In: Science 276, Issue 5317, pp. 1382-1386 (1997). [13] .
  15. ↑ Best illustration in [14] . Retrieved August 4, 2020.
  16. ↑ Best illustration in [15] . Retrieved February 17, 2020.
  17. ↑ Best illustration in [16] . Retrieved February 18, 2020.
  18. ^ "Weinberger galaxies" in z. B. [17]
  19. ↑ A calendar without Jesus is possible . In: Kurier , December 27, 2012. [18]
  20. ↑ Anno Homo Sapiens . In: The Gap , 08/08/2012. [19]
  21. ↑ In need of revision . In: ECHO , 20.09.2012. [20]
  22. ↑ Provocative, but extremely rich in humor . In: RUNDSCHAU , July 25 , 2012, p. 32
personal data
SURNAME Weinberger, Ronald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian astronomer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Schallerbach , Upper Austria