Struve, FGW
ORDERBY-NAME: Strive, Friedrich Georg Wilhelm
OTHER-NAME: None
BIRTH: 15 April 1793; Altona, Germany
DEATH: 23 November 1864; Pulkovo, Russia
CATEGORY: Science
DISCIPLINE: Astronomy
ASSESSMENT: He effectively founded the study of binary (double) stars.
LANGUAGE: German
EDUCATION: Christianeum Gymnasium, Altona, Germany; University of Gottingen, Germany
ACHIEVEMENT: He was one of the greatest astronomers of the nineteenth century
MAJOR-WORK: His catalogues of binary stars
PARENTS: Jacob Struve; Maria Emerenzia Wise
SPOUSE: Emily Wall (m. 1814-1834); Johanna Bartrels (m. 1835)
SIBLINGS: Karl (elder brother) and five other children
CHILDREN: 12 by Emily Walls; 6 by Johanna Bartels
DETAILS: Struve (who founded a four-generation dynasty of great astronomers) came from a peasant family, but made it to university by sheer hard work. After graduating he taught in various local schools and then settled in Altona, becoming principal of the Gymnasium he himself had attended as a student.
To avoid conscription into the military his parents sent him to Dorpat, Russia (today: Tartu, Estonia) and in 1810 he graduated from the university there with a degree in philology.
He then got permission to work in the university observatory, where he installed new instruments and worked out the exact position of the building. For this he was awarded a doctorate in 1813, and was made professor of mathematics and astronomy and the university astronomer.
Over 25 years of teaching at Dorpat Struve gave lectures to undergraduates, military classes and the general public.
In 1814 he began regular observations and in 1817 started publication of a series of volumes of his data. In 1824 he used a 9-in telescope (the largest telescope in existence) made by <used telescope by> Frauenhofer*.
Struve’s activity covered every sphere of astronomical observation: double stars, star distance, star distribution, planetary and cometary sightings, auroras, meridian measurement, instrument design, etc. In 1822 he published a catalogue of more than 790 double stars and examined over 100,000 stars.
At one point he was invited to organize the construction of a new observatory at Pulkovo, near St Petersburg and in 1834 he was appointed Director. He wrote a book on all the work that had been necessary to arrange and build the observatory, including details of everything from instrument design to star tables.
In November 1837 he published his great catalogue of 2,736 double stars, hailed by <a fan was> Bessel* as a ‘magnificent work.’ By 1842 he and his assistants had observed the entire northern sky and discovered over five hundred new multiple stars.
He had from the start spent much time on developing means of calculating the distances of stars as well as the relationship between distance and brightness. During this work he calculated that there was ‘matter’ in space that caused the brightness of a star to dim about 1/100th more than it ought to if space were a transparent medium.
He also calculated that our Sun lies above the main plane of the galaxy.
Struve was active in geodesy, and made several measurements which aided more accurate mapping of the Baltic. He also calculated the level difference between the Black and Caspian Seas.
By the time he died Struve was a major international figure, a member of more that forty learned academies, societies and universities, as well as an honorary member of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
EXTRA-CONNECTIONS: His work related to that of <work related to> Piazzi*, <work related to> William Herschel*, <work related to> Olbers*.
He discussed his work with <corresponded with> Steinheil* and <corresponded with> Alexander von Humboldt*.
ONELINER: FGW Struve, 19th cent. astronomer and binary star expert
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Dictionary of Scientific Biography