Bernardus Wilhelmus Maria "Bert" van Sprang (20 June 1944 in

Tilburg Tilburg () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands, in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant. With a population of 22 ...

– 17 November 2015 in

Pijnacker Pijnacker () is a town in the Netherlands, Dutch province of South Holland. It is bordered by Zoetermeer to the north, by Nootdorp to the northwest, by Delfgauw to the southwest, by Rotterdam (specifically Overschie) to the south and by Berkel en ...

)Obituary
at the JWG website was the founder of the

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

youth division ("JWG", or ''Jongerenwerkgroep'') of the Dutch association of

meteorology Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agricultur ...

and

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

("NVWS", or ''Nederlandse Vereniging voor Weer- en Sterrenkunde'') in 1967. Activities carried out by Van Sprang for the JWG included the organization of astro camps, the setting up of a program to build telescopes cheaply, and the writing of many booklets on astronomy topics. He was also program leader of the planetarium in The Hague until it was destroyed by fire in February 1976. The

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

3098 van Sprang was named after him.

Bibliography

*Govert Schilling & Bert van Sprang, ''De levensloop van de zon'', Stichting De Koepel, 1979 *Bert van Sprang, ''Wegwijs in het zonnestelsel'', Stichting Universum, 1988, *Govert Schilling & Bert van Sprang, ''Wegwijs in het Universum. Een handleiding opzoekboek voor JWG-leden. Brochure nr. 56'', Jongerenwerkgroep N.V.W.S., 1980

References

1944 births 2015 deaths 20th-century Dutch astronomers People from Tilburg 21st-century Dutch astronomers {{netherlands-bio-stub