Moritz Ludwig George Wichmann (1821–1859) was a German

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 ...

. He was an ardent observer of minor planets. A student of

Friedrich Bessel Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (; 22 July 1784 – 17 March 1846) was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesy, geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the Sun to another star by th ...

, he observed with the famous Königsberg heliometer. In 1853 he published a determination of the parallax of Groombridge 1830. The son of Franz Wichmann (1776–1850), a councilor at the Celle Higher Court of Appeal, the grandson of pastor and educator Christian Rudolf Karl Wichmann, and the younger brother of painter Adolf Friedrich Georg Wichmann. After attending the Ernestinum in Celle, Wichmann studied at the University of Göttingen under Carl Friedrich Gauss. There he received an academic prize in 1843 for a thesis in which he treated a problem in spherical geometry. In 1844, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel appointed him assistant and observer at the Königsberg Observatory, where he qualified as a professor in 1830 with a thesis on the parallax of the star Groombridge. This parallax led to a heated and somewhat controversial debate with the astronomers at the Russian main observatory in Pulkovo, which would last for many years. In addition to this subject, Wichmann submitted papers on the newly discovered asteroids, the

libation A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an Sacrifice, offering to a deity or spirit, or in Veneration of the dead, memory of the dead. It was common in many religions of Ancient history, antiquity and continues to be offered in cultures t ...

of the Moon, and solar prominences. The asteroid 7103 WichmannAsteroid 7103 Wichmann.
/ref> and the Wichmann crater on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

were named in his honour.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wichmann, Moritz 19th-century German astronomers 1821 births 1859 deaths