Born Eutin, (Schleswig‐Holstein, Germany), 26 October 1825
Died Athens, Greece, 7 February 1884
German observer Julius Schmidt compiled the most complete maps of the Moon of his generation and reported changes in the appearance of one crater that were widely accepted at the time. In an era when study of the Moon had become increasingly specialized and knowledge of its topography so comprehensive that it led to the formation of a committee of British observers to further its mapping, Schmidt worked unaided and alone. It was plausibly suggested by Harvard College Observatory astronomer William Pickering that Schmidt “perhaps devoted more of his life than any other man to the study of the Moon.”
Schmidt was the son of Carl Friedrich Schmidt, a glazier by profession, and Maria Elisabeth Quirling. At the age of 14, young Schmidt chanced upon a copy of Johann Schröter 's Selenotopographische Fragmente. He was so fascinated by its pictures of mountains and craters that the future direction...
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Selected References
Ashbrook, Joseph (1984). “Julius Schmidt: An Incredible Visual Observer.” In The Astronomical Scrapbook, edited by Leif J. Robinson, pp. 251–258. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Sky Publishing Corp.
Ball, Robert S. (1886). The Story of the Heavens. New York: Funk and Wagnalls.
Birmingham, John. “Schmidt's Lunar Map.” Observatory 2 (1879): 413–415; 3 (1879): 10–17.
Freiseleben, H.‐Christ. (1975). “Schmidt, Johann Friedrich Julius.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 12, p. 192. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Sheehan, William and Thomas Dobbins (2001). Epic Moon: A History of Lunar Exploration in the Age of the Telescope. Richmond, Virginia: Willmann‐Bell.
Whitaker, Ewen A. (1999). Mapping and Naming the Moon: A History of Lunar Cartography and Nomenclature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Dobbins, T.A., Sheehan, W. (2007). Schmidt, Johann Friedrich Julius. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_1238
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