Abstract
Hans Battermann, who died in Blankenburg, Harz, on June 15, at the age of sixty-two, has left a record of much useful work in astronomy. In his youth he studied at Berlin University under Forster and Tietjen, gaining the degree of doctor in 1881 for a dissertation on aberration. After a short period at Hamburg Observatory he returned to Berlin as a member of the Commission which was appointed, under the direction of Auwers, for the discussion of the results obtained at the transits of Venus in 1874 and 1882. During this period he observed a long series of occultations of stars by the moon, utilising them to obtain a value of the moon's parallactic inequality, and hence of the solar parallax; the value that he found for the latter was 8.789″, which is a good approximation to the accepted value; a still longer series of occultations, observed near the first and last quarters of the moon, should give a very accurate solar parallax. Battermann also conducted two other useful investigations at this"time, one on the nature of the images in a heliometer, the other a triangulation of the Pleiades with that instrument. In 1888 he observed for nine months at the Göttingen Observatory; on his return to Berlin he took the chief part in the star observations with the transit circle, and in their reduction to a Catalogue, including the discussion of proper motions. In 1904 Battermann was appointed professor and director of the University Observatory at Konigsberg; he continued there his researches on proper motion, and also observed further occultations with the 13-inch refractor. He was compelled to resign his professorship in 1919 through a complete breakdown in health, brought on by overwork; he retired to Blankenburg, where he died three years later, after much suffering.
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C., A. Prof. H. Battermann. Nature 110, 258 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110258a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/110258a0