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ENCKE, JOHANN FRANZ (1791–1865)

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Originally appearing in Volume V09, Page 369 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ENCKE, JOHANN See also:FRANZ (1791–1865) , See also:German astronomer, was See also:born at See also:Hamburg on the 23rd of See also:September 1791. Matriculating at the university of See also:Gottingen in 1811, he began by devoting himself to See also:astronomy under Carl See also:Friedrich See also:Gauss; but he enlisted in the Hanseatic See also:Legion for the See also:campaign of 1813-14, and became See also:lieutenant of See also:artillery in the Prussian service in 1815. Having returned to Gottingen in 1816, he was at once appointed by Benhardt von Lindenau his assistant in the See also:observatory of Seeberg near See also:Gotha. There he completed his investigation of the See also:comet of 168o, for which the See also:Cotta See also:prize was awarded to him in 1817; he correctly assigned a See also:period of 71 years to the comet of 1812 ; and discovered the See also:swift circulation of the remarkable comet which bears his name (see COMET). Eight masterly See also:treatises on its movements were published by him in the See also:Berlin Abhandlungen (1829-1859). From a fresh discussion of the transits of See also:Venus in 1761 and 1769 he deduced (1822–1824) a See also:solar See also:parallax of 8" • 57, See also:long accepted as authoritative. In 1822 he became director of the Seeberg observatory, and in 1825 was promoted to a corresponding position at Berlin, where a new observatory, built under his superintendence, was inaugurated in 1835. He directed the preparation of the See also:star-maps of the Berlin See also:academy 183o-18J9, edited from 1830 and greatly improved the Astronemisches Jahrbuch, and issued four volumes of the Astronomische Beobachtungen of the Berlin observatory (1840-1857). Much labour was bestowed by him upon facilitating the computation of the movements of the asteroids. With this end in view he expounded to the Berlin academy in 1849 a mode of determining an elliptic See also:orbit from three observations, and communicated to that See also:body in 1851 a new method of calculating planetary perturbations by means of rectangular co-ordinates (republished in W. Ostwald's Klassiker der exacten Wissenschaften, No. 141, 1903).

Encke visited See also:

England in 1840. Incipient See also:brain-disease compelled him to withdraw from See also:official See also:life in See also:November 1863, and he died at See also:Spandau on the 26th of See also:August 1865. He contributed extensively to the periodical literature of astronomy, and was twice, in 1823 and 183o, the recipient of the Royal Astronomical Society's See also:gold See also:medal. See Johann Franz Encke, sein Leben and Wirken, von Dr C. Bruhns (See also:Leipzig, 1869), to which a See also:list of his writings is appended. Also, See also:Month. Notices See also:Roy. Astr. Society, See also:xxvi. 129; V.J.S. Astr. Gesellschaft, iv.

227; Berlin. Abkandlungen (1866), i., G. See also:

Hagen; Sitzungsberichte, See also:Munich Acad. (1866), i. p. 395, &c. (A. M.

End of Article: ENCKE, JOHANN FRANZ (1791–1865)

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