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Johann Hieronymus Schröter
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Johann Hieronymus Schröter (August 30 1745 – August 29 1816) was a German astronomer.
In 1777 he was appointed Secretary of the Royal Chamber of George III in Hanover, where he made the acquaintance of two of William Herschel's brothers. Herschel's discovery of Uranus inspired Schröter to pursue astronomy more seriously, and he resigned his post and became chief magistrate of Lilienthal.
He acquired two telescopes made by Herschel and concentrated almost entirely on observations of the Moon and planets. He made extensive drawings of the features of Mars, yet curiously he was always erroneously convinced that what he was seeing was mere cloud formations rather than geographical features. In 1791 he published an important early study on the topography of the Moon entitled Selenotopographische Fragmente zur genauern Kenntniss der Mondfläche.
In his later years he suffered the disruptions of the Napoleonic Wars when his observatory was looted by French troops.
His drawings of Mars were not rediscovered until 1873 (by François J. Terby) and were not published until 1881 (by H. G. van de Sande Bakhuyzen), well after his death.
Schröter crater on the Moon and Schroeter crater on Mars are named after him. Also, Vallis Schröteri (Schröter's Valley) on the Moon is named after him.
References
- William Sheehan & Richard Baum, Observation and inference: Johann Hieronymous Schroeter, 1745–1816, JBAA 105 (1995), 171 [1] (http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1995JBAA..105..171S)de:Johann Hieronymus Schröter