Born Driesen (Drezdenko, Poland), 8 April 1793
Died Marienwerder (Kwidzyń, Poland), 21 September 1866
Working with extremely simple means, the amateur astronomer Karl Hencke discovered two asteroids and five variable stars, and made notable contributions to the preparation of the Berlin Academic Star Charts. After attending the city school in his hometown, Hencke progressed through a career in the postal service that was interrupted in 1813 by his entry into a Prussian military corps during the war against Napoleon. In 1817, he became a postal secretary and managed the post office of his native city. At a comparatively young age of 45 years, he retired for health reasons in 1837. For 4 years thereafter, Hencke occupied an honorary civic post.
Hencke engaged in astronomical activity in addition to his professional duties and intensified his scientific pursuits after his retirement. In the skylight of his residence in Driesen, Hencke constructed an observatory. Around 1821, he bought...
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Selected References
Foerster, Wilhelm (1896). “Dr. Karl Ludwig Hencke.” In Wissenschaftliche Erkenntnis und sittliche Freiheit. Berlin, pp. 38–51.
Folkerts, Menso (2001). “Die Entdeckung der Planetoiden Astraea und Hebe durch K. L. Hencke.” In Florilegium astronomicum: Festschrift für Felix Schmeidler, edited by Menso Folkerts et al., pp. 107–140. Munich: Institut für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaft.
Freise, B. (1949). “Karl Ludwig Hencke. Postsekretär und Astronom.” Die Sterne 25: 78–82.
Hamel, Jürgen (1989). “Bessels Projekt der Berliner Akademischen Sternkarten.” Die Sterne 65: 11–19.
Hencke, Karl Ludwig (1846). “Schreiben des Herrn Hencke in Driesen an den Herausgeber. ” Astronomische Nachrichten 23: 385–388.
———. Letters to J. F. Encke, 1835–1851. Encke‐Nachlass, Archives of the Berlin‐Brandenburg Academy of Science. (Eighteen letters in a special file labeled “K. L. Hencke.”)
Merrill, Paul W. (1938). The Nature of Variable Stars. New York: Macmillan, p. 30.
Müller, G. and E. Hartwig (1920). Geschichte und Literature des Lichtwechsels veränderlicher Sterne. Vol. 2, pp 10–11, 50–51, 263. Leipzig: Poeschel and Trepte
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Hamel, J. (2007). Hencke, Karl Ludwig. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_596
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