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Astronomers
Those you need to know
Description | Astronomier |
---|---|
Danish, 1546-1601, discovered serious errors in existing astronomical tables, observed new star in Cassiopeia, developed an accurate catalogu of positions of 777 stars | Tycho Brahe |
Polish, 1473-1543, founder of modern astronomy, wrote De Revolutionibus, proving the sun to be the center of the universe | Nicolas Copernicus |
German, 1787-1826, Founded an optical institute in Munich, improved prisms and telescopes, enabling him to discover the dark lines in the Sun's spectrum, named after him | Joseph von Fraunhofer |
Italian astronomer and mathematician, 1564-1642, perfected refracting telescope, convinced of the correctness of the heliocentric theory | Galileo Galilei |
English, 1656-1742, famous for work in cometary astronomy, predicted return of comet now named after him, first to make complete observation of transit of Mercury | Edmund Halley |
English, 1792-1871, discovered 525 nebulae, pioneered celestial photography and carried out research on photo-active chemicals and wave theory of light | John Frederick William Herschel |
German-born British astronomer, 1738-1822, used his own reflecting telescope, discovered planet Uranus, made catalog of double stars | William Herschel |
Danish, 1873-1967, work on relationships between color and brightness of stars, greatly developed Leavitt's method for finding stellar distances | Ejnar Hertzsprung |
American, 1889-1953, identified some nebulae as independent galaxies, discovered "red shift" and announced a Constant for the expansion of universe | Edwin Hubble |
German, 1571-1630, proved that the planets do not orbit in circles but in ellipses; his First and Second Laws are starting point of Newton's discoveries and of modern astronomy | Johann Kepler |
American, 1855-1916, observations of Mars, prediction of existence of planet, Pluto | Percival Lowell |
French, 1730-1817, mapped faint unmoving objects in sky which became the first nebula catalogs, a prefix recognizing his contribution by the letter is applied to these objects | Charles Messier |
Eyptian, 90-168, greatly influenced scientists into the 17th century | Ptolemy |
American, b. 1934, through books and Tv program popularized astronomy | Carl Sagan |
American, b. 1906, discoveredPluto in 1930 | Clyde William Tombaugh |