Kaspar Gottfried Schweizer (16 February 1816 – 6 July 1873) was a
Swiss
Swiss most commonly refers to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
* Swiss people
Swiss may also refer to: Places
* Swiss, Missouri
* Swiss, North Carolina
* Swiss, West Virginia
* Swiss, Wisconsin
Other uses
* Swiss Café, an old café located ...
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...
who travelled to
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
in 1845 to become Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at the Survey Institute, and later director of the
Moscow University
Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...
Observatory.
Schweizer was born in 1816 as the son of a pastor at
Wila,
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
. In 1839, he went to
Königsberg
Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...
to assist
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (; 22 July 1784 – 17 March 1846) was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the Sun to another star by the method ...
. From 1841 to 1845 he worked at
Pulkovo Observatory
The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory (), officially named the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkovo, is the principal astronomical observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is located 19 km south ...
under
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (, trans. ''Vasily Yakovlevich Struve''; 15 April 1793 – ) was a Baltic German astronomer and geodesist. He is best known for studying double stars and initiating a triangulation survey later named Struve ...
. Schweizer discovered five
comet
A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...
s, and found one
NGC object, NGC 7804, on 11 November 1864.
References
External links
Kaspar Gottfried Schweizer ''Historische Lexikon der Schweiz''
obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schweizer, Kaspar Gottfried
19th-century astronomers from the Russian Empire
19th-century Swiss astronomers
Discoverers of comets
1816 births
1873 deaths