Johann Georg Repsold was a German

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...

 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 joined the fire brigade of Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 in 1799. In 1802 he began building a private observatory, and collaborated in astronomical observations with Heinrich Christian Schumacher

Heinrich Christian Schumacher

Heinrich Christian Schumacher was a German-Danish astronomer.-Biography:He was born at Bramstedt, in Holstein, and studied at Kiel, Jena, Copenhagen, and Göttingen. In 1810, he became adjunct professor of astronomy in Copenhagen...

. However the observatory was destroyed in the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 in 1811. In 1825 a new observatory was completed at Stadtwall, and Repsold became the director, supplying the instruments at his own expense with other funding from the city of Hamburg.

In 1830 he died in the line of his firefighting duties. The expense of running the observatory was taken over by the local government, and the new director was Carl Ludwig Christian Rümker

Carl Ludwig Christian Rümker

Carl Ludwig Christian Rümker was a German astronomer. In German, his name is spelt Karl Ludwig Christian Rümker; he was also known as Charles Rümker, Charles Rumker, Charles Luis Rumker, Christian Carl Ludwig Rümker and Dr...

. Repsold's observatory was demolished upon the completion of a new observatory, the modern Hamburg Observatory at Bergedorf

Bergedorf

Bergedorf is the largest of the seven boroughs of Hamburg, Germany and a quarter within this borough. In 2006 the population of the borough was 118,942.-History:...

, between 1906 and 1912. The site is now occupied by the hamburgmuseum

Hamburgmuseum

The hamburgmuseum , also known as Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte , is a history museum located in the city of Hamburg in northern Germany. The museum was established at its current location in 1922, although its parent organization was started in 1839. The museum was named hamburgmuseum in 2006...

The crater Repsold

Repsold (crater)

Repsold is a lunar crater that is located at the western end of the Oceanus Procellarum. It lies to the northeast of the crater Galvani and southeast of the walled plain Volta. Due to its proximity to the northwestern limb of the Moon, this crater appears highly foreshortened when viewed from the...

 on the Moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

 is named after him, as is the asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 906 Repsolda

906 Repsolda

906 Repsolda is a minor planet orbiting the Sun. It is named for the German astronomer and fireman Johann Georg Repsold who founded and ran Hamburg Observatory.-External links:*...

.

External links

• http://www.hs.uni-hamburg.de/EN/Oef/Stw/gesch.html