German astronomer (1822–1875)
Heinrich Louis d'Arrest (13 August 1822 – 14 June 1875; German pronunciation: [daˈʁɛ] [1] ) was a German astronomer , born in Berlin . His name is sometimes given as Heinrich Ludwig d'Arrest .
Biography
While still a student at the University of Berlin , d'Arrest was party to Johann Gottfried Galle 's search for Neptune . On 23 September 1846, he suggested that a recently drawn chart of the sky, in the region of Urbain Le Verrier 's predicted location, could be compared with the current sky to seek the displacement characteristic of a planet , as opposed to a stationary star . Neptune was discovered that very night .
D'Arrest's later work at the Leipzig Observatory led him, in 1851, to the discovery of the comet named for him (formally designated 6P/d'Arrest ). He also studied asteroids , discovering 76 Freia , nebulae , and galaxies, discovering NGC 1 in 1861 and NGC 26 and NGC 358 in 1865.
In 1864 D'Arrest made an unsuccessful search for Martian satellites , and posited an upper limit of 70 minutes of arc as the distance from Mars within which a moon should be sought.[2]
He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1875.
In 1857, he married Auguste Emilie Möbius, daughter of his then-supervisor, August Ferdinand Möbius .[3] He died in Copenhagen , Denmark.
Honours
The crater D'Arrest on the Moon, the crater D'Arrest on the Martian satellite Phobos , as well as the asteroid 9133 d'Arrest were named after him.
See also
References
^ Müller, August, Allgemeines Wörterbuch der Aussprache ausländischer Eigennamen (7th ed., 1903), p. 34.
^ Lord Lindsay, "Address," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 39:4 (Feb. 14, 1879), p. 311.
^ Hockey, Thomas (2009). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers . Springer Publishing . ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0 . Retrieved August 22, 2012 .
External links
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