Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander

Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander (1799-1875), German astronomer, who compiled a catalog of more than 300,000 stars over a 25-year period. Argelander was born in Memel, Prussia (now Klaipėda, Lithuania), and was educated at the University of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). In 1837 he accepted the chair of astronomy at the University of Bonn, and he remained there until his death. At Bonn he completed his greatest achievement by publishing his Bonner Durchmusterung. The Bonner Durchmusterung cataloged the position and brightness of more than 324,000 stars of magnitude greater than 9.5 from the North Pole to 2° south of the equator. Among Argelander's other achievements were the calculation in 1837 of the motion of the sun through space; the development of a system of magnitudes for describing the brightness of stars too dim to be seen by the naked eye; and the development of the system for naming stars that is still in use today.