Monday, July 6, 2009

July 6: Ernst Arnold Kohlschütter


Ernst Arnold Kohlschütter
July 6, 1883 – May 28, 1969

Arnold Kohlschütter was a German astronomer and astrophysicist from Halle.

In 1908 he was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen.

In 1911 he began working at the Mount Wilson Observatory, studying the spectra of the Sun and stars. In collaboration with Walter Sidney Adams, and in 1914 they discovered that the absolute luminosity of a star was proportional to the relative intensity of the lines in the spectrum. This allowed astronomers to determine the distance of stars, including main sequence and giants, using the spectroscope.

He became the director of the Bonn observatory in 1925. Therein he was dedicated to astrometric studies.

The crater Kohlschütter on the Moon is named in his honor.





No comments:

Post a Comment