John Martin Schaeberle
John Martin Schaeberle (born January 10, 1853, in Württemberg, Germany; died September 17, 1924, in Ann Arbor, Michigan) was a German-American astronomer.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
He was born Johann Martin Schäberle in Germany, but in 1854 [1] immigrated as an infant to the United States. Most sources refer to him as John M. Schaeberle, but his family and friends called him Martin.
He attended public schools, and then became an apprentice in a machine shop. During his apprenticeship, he became interested in astronomy, and decided to finish high school.[1] He then became a student of James Craig Watson at the University of Michigan, and later served on its astronomy faculty from 1878 to 1888. He maintained his own private observatory and discovered three comets. In 1888 he became one of the inaugural astronomers at Lick Observatory.
He designed the "Schaeberle camera" to take pictures of the Sun and its corona during total solar eclipses. He also discovered Procyon B, the faint companion star of Procyon, in 1896.
He resigned from Lick Observatory when James E. Keeler was made its director instead of him in 1898, despite the fact that he had been acting director since the previous year. He devoted some time to travel, and then continued astronomical studies in Ann Arbor.[1] He never held another astronomical post. He was also an athlete and musician.[1]
There are craters named after him on both the Moon and on Mars.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d Donald H. Menzel (1935). "Schaeberle, John Martin". Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
[edit] External links
[edit] Obituaries
- Obs 47 (1924) 348 (one paragraph)
- PASP 36 (1924) 309
