Friedrich August Theodor Winnecke
Encyclopedia
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
) was a German astronomer
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
.
He worked at Pulkovo Observatory
Pulkovo Observatory
The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory астрономи́ческая обсервато́рия Росси́йской акаде́мии нау́к), the principal astronomical observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, located 19 km south of Saint Petersburg on Pulkovo Heights...
from 1858 to 1865, but returned to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and served as professor of astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
at Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
from 1872 to 1881.
He discovered or co-discovered a large number of comets, including the periodic comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke
7P/Pons-Winnecke
7P/Pons–Winnecke is a periodic comet in our solar system.Jean Louis Pons originally discovered the comet on June 12, 1819, it was later rediscovered by Friedrich August Theodor Winnecke on March 9, 1858. It is believed to be the parent body of the June Bootids of late June.7P has an orbital...
and the comet once known as "Pons-Coggia-Winnecke-Forbes" but later renamed to 27P/Crommelin
27P/Crommelin
Comet Crommelin, also known as Comet Pons-Coggia-Winnecke-Forbes, is a periodic comet in the solar system named after the British astronomer Andrew C. D. Crommelin who calculated its orbit in 1930...
after Andrew Crommelin, who computed its orbit.
He also compiled a list of double star
Double star
In observational astronomy, a double star is a pair of stars that appear close to each other in the sky as seen from Earth when viewed through an optical telescope. This can happen either because the pair forms a binary star, i.e...
s and found a number of nebula
Nebula
A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and other ionized gases...
e.