Label Text:
Max Wolf earned his Ph.D. at the University of Heidelberg, studied in Stockholm for two years, and then returned to spend the rest of his life at Heidelberg, where he founded and directed the Königstuhl Observatory and served as professor of astrophysics. He used wide-field photography to study the Milky Way and used statistical treatment of star counts to prove the existence of clouds of dark matter. He was among the first astronomers to show that the spiral nebulae have absorption spectra typical of stars and thus differ from gaseous nebulae. He discovered hundreds of asteroids, the first of which he named Brucia in honor of the donor of his 16-inch double telescope, Catherine Wolfe Bruce. He discovered the first Trojan asteroid, Achilles, as well as thousands of nebulae and galaxies. A co-developer of the stereocomparator, Wolf also suggested the idea of the modern planetarium while advising on the new Deutsches Museum in Munich.
Tags:
darkness; stars; dots Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2003.02 |
