Argelander

Argelander, FRIEDRICH WILHELM AUGUST, an eminent astronomer, was born in 1799, at Memel. He studied at Königsberg, and was drawn to astronomy by the lectures of Bessel. In 1820 he was appointed assistant to Bessel in the Königsberg Observatory, and in 1823 chief of the observatory of Abo, in Finland. Here he commenced a series of observations on the fixed stars which have a perceptible 'proper motion;' observations continued in a new observatory at Helsingfors, where he published a catalogue of not less than 560 stars having 'proper motions.' After removing finally to the university of Bonn in 1837, he published his Urano-metria Nova (1843), containing celestial charts of the fixed stars seen in our hemisphere with the naked eye; also (1846) his Astronomical Observations, containing the results of an examination of the northern heavens from 45° to 80° declination. His Atlas of the Northern Heavens will combine with these works to perpetuate his memory. Argelander was long engaged in a series of observations on the changes of light in variable stars, and he also demonstrated the theory that there is a progressive motion of the solar system in space. He died 17th February 1875.