von Auwers, Arthur Julius Georg Friedrich

Alternate Name

Auwers, Arthur Julius Georg Friedrich von

BornGöttingen, (Germany), 12 September 1838

DiedBerlin-Lichterfelde, Germany, 24 January 1915

Arthur von Auwers’s primary interest for most of his life was in preparing extremely accurate catalogs of the positions of stars.

Auwers’s father was Gottfried Daniel Auwers, master of the horses at the University in Göttingen, while his mother was Emma Christiane Sophie (née Borkenstein). He lost both parents while still a child and was sent to finish schooling at the gymnasia at Schulpforta at the age of about 12.

Auwers’s interest in astronomy originated in his early school years; in 1862, he published a work on William Herschel ’s catalog of nebulae and clusters that was based on observations Auwers made, starting in about 1854. Auwers studied astronomy in Göttingen and Königsberg and was appointed assistant at the observatory in Königsberg in 1859. During this period he made observations of comets, asteroids, and variable stars in...