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Johann Hieronymus Schröter (30 August 1745,
Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits in ...
– 29 August 1816, Lilienthal) was a German
astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...
.


Life

Schröter was born in
Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits in ...
, and studied law at
Göttingen University Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...
from 1762 until 1767, after which he started a ten-year-long legal practice. In 1777 he was appointed Secretary of the Royal Chamber of
George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
in
Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
, where he made the acquaintance of two of
William Herschel Frederick William Herschel (; german: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline ...
's brothers. In 1779 he acquired a three-foot-long (91 cm, almost one metre) achromatic refractor with lens (50 mm) to observe the Sun,
Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...
and
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...
. Herschel's discovery of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus ( Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars), grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter) and father of ...
in 1781 inspired Schröter to pursue
astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...
more seriously, and he resigned his post and became chief magistrate and district governor of Lilienthal. In 1784 he paid 31
Reichsthaler The ''Reichsthaler'' (; modern spelling Reichstaler), or more specifically the ''Reichsthaler specie'', was a standard thaler silver coin introduced by the Holy Roman Empire in 1566 for use in all German states, minted in various versions for the ...
(about 600 Euros of today) for a Herschel reflector of 122 cm focal length and 12 cm aperture. He quickly gained a good name from his observational reports in journals, but was not satisfied and in 1786 paid 600 Reichstaler (an equivalent of six months earnings) for a 214 cm focal length 16.5 cm aperture reflector with eyepieces allowing up to 1,200 magnification, and 26
Thaler A thaler (; also taler, from german: Taler) is one of the large silver coins minted in the states and territories of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy during the Early Modern period. A ''thaler'' size silver coin has a diameter o ...
for a screw-micrometer. With this he systematically observed Venus,
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
,
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...
and
Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
. Schröter 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''. The visual lunar albedo scale developed in this work was later popularised by Thomas Gwyn Elger and now bears his name. In 1793 he was the first to notice the phase anomaly of Venus, now known as the
Schröter effect Schröter or Schroeter may refer to: * Schröter (lunar crater), a crater on the Moon * Schroeter (Martian crater), a crater on Mars * Schröter (surname) See also * Schroter's Valley (AKA Vallis Schröteri), a lunar feature named after Joh ...
, where the phase appears more concave than geometry predicts. His two famous assistant astronomers were
Karl Ludwig Harding Karl Ludwig Harding (29 September 1765 – 31 August 1834) was a German astronomer, who discovered 3 Juno, the third asteroid of the main-belt in 1804. The lunar crater '' Harding'' and the asteroid 2003 Harding are named in his honor. ...
(1796–1804) and Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1806–1810). In 1813, he suffered the disruptions of the
Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fre ...
: his work was ruined by the
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
under
Vandamme Vandamme is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Alexandre Vandamme (born 1962), Belgian businessman * Dominique Vandamme (1770–1830), French military officer * George Vandamme, Belgian wheelchair racer * Jamaïque Vandamme (born ...
, who destroyed his books, writings and observatory. He never recovered from the catastrophe. 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. He was elected a member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for prom ...
in 1794 and elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...
in April 1798. The lunar crater Schröter and the Martian crater Schroeter are named after him, as is Vallis Schröteri (Schröter's Valley) on the Moon.


See also

* List of largest optical telescopes in the 18th century


References

* *


External links


Biography at the University of Bremen's Olbers Planetarium website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schroter, Johann 1745 births 1816 deaths Scientists from Erfurt 18th-century German astronomers Selenographers University of Göttingen alumni Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences 19th-century German astronomers