Baron
Franz Xaver von Zach (
Franz Xaver FreiherrThe German titles Freiherr and Freifrau and Freiin are titles of nobility, used preceding the names of people, or later , before family names...
von Zach) (June 4, 1754–September 2, 1832) was a German astronomer born at
PestPest is the eastern, mostly flat part of Budapest, comprising about two thirds of Budapest's territory. It is divided from Buda, the other part of Budapest, by the Danube River. Among its most notable parts are the Inner City, including the Hungarian Parliament, Heroes' Square and Andrássy Avenue...
in Hungary.
He served for some time in the
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
n army, and afterwards lived in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
from 1783 to 1786 as tutor in the house of the
SaxonThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
minister, Count Brühl. In 1786 he was appointed by Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg director of the new
observatory on Seeberg hillGotha Observatory was a German astronomical observatory located on Seeberg hill near Gotha, Thuringia, Germany...
at
GothaGotha is a town in Thuringia, within the central core of Germany. It is the capital of the district of Gotha.- History :The town has existed at least since the 8th century, when it was mentioned in a document signed by Charlemagne as Villa Gotaha . Its importance derives from having been chosen in...
, which was finished in 1791.
Baron
Franz Xaver von Zach (
Franz Xaver FreiherrThe German titles Freiherr and Freifrau and Freiin are titles of nobility, used preceding the names of people, or later , before family names...
von Zach) (June 4, 1754–September 2, 1832) was a German astronomer born at
PestPest is the eastern, mostly flat part of Budapest, comprising about two thirds of Budapest's territory. It is divided from Buda, the other part of Budapest, by the Danube River. Among its most notable parts are the Inner City, including the Hungarian Parliament, Heroes' Square and Andrássy Avenue...
in Hungary.
He served for some time in the
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
n army, and afterwards lived in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
from 1783 to 1786 as tutor in the house of the
SaxonThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
minister, Count Brühl. In 1786 he was appointed by Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg director of the new
observatory on Seeberg hillGotha Observatory was a German astronomical observatory located on Seeberg hill near Gotha, Thuringia, Germany...
at
GothaGotha is a town in Thuringia, within the central core of Germany. It is the capital of the district of Gotha.- History :The town has existed at least since the 8th century, when it was mentioned in a document signed by Charlemagne as Villa Gotaha . Its importance derives from having been chosen in...
, which was finished in 1791. At the close of the 18th century, he organised a group of twenty-four astronomers to prepare for a systematic search for the "missing planet" predicted by the
Titius-Bode lawThe Titius–Bode law is a hypothesis that the bodies in some orbital systems, including the Sun's, orbit at semi-major axes in an exponential function of planetary sequence...
between
MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface....
and
JupiterJupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass slightly less than one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all of the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas...
. Ceres was discovered by accident just as the search was getting underway. From 1806 Zach accompanied the duke's widow on her travels in the south of
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
. He died in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1832.
Zach published
Tables of the Sun (Gotha, 1792; new and improved edition,
ibid., 1804), and numerous papers on geographical subjects, particularly on the geographical positions of many towns and places, which he determined on his travels with a
sextantA sextant is an instrument generally used to measure the altitude of a celestial object above the horizon. Making this measurement is known as sighting the object, shooting the object, or taking a sight. The angle, and the time when it was measured, can be used to calculate a position line on a...
.
His principal importance was, however, as editor of three scientific journals of great value:
Allgemeine Geographische Ephemeriden (4 vols., Gotha, 1798-1799),
Monatliche Correspondenz zur Beförderung der Erd- und Himmels-Kunde (28 vols., Gotha, 1800-1813, from 1807 edited by
Bernhard von LindenauBaron Bernhard August von Lindenau was a German lawyer, astronomer, politician, and art collector.Lindenau was born in Altenburg, where he also died. In 1830 he was the Minister of the Interior during a turbulent period in the history of Saxony...
), and
(Genoa, 1818-1826, 14 vols., and one number of the 15th, the suppression of which was instigated by the
JesuitsThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic religious order of clerks regular whose members are called Jesuits.Jesuits are the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church, with 18,815 members—13,305 priests, 2,295 scholastic students, 1,758 brothers and 827 novices—as of January 2008, although the...
).
He was elected a member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesThe Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademin is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2 June...
in 1794.
Asteroid
999 Zachia999 Zachia is a main-belt asteroid named after Austrian astronomer Franz Xaver von Zach.-External links:*...
and the crater
ZachZach is a lunar impact crater located in the heavily cratered southern sector of the Moon. To the north is the crater Lilius, while to the southeast is Pentland and to the south the larger Curtius. Due to foreshortening, the crater has an oblong appearance when viewed from Earth. The crater is 71...
on the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
are named after him, while asteroid
64 Angelina64 Angelina is a medium-sized Main belt asteroid and is an uncommon E-type asteroid. It is the third largest E-type after 44 Nysa and 55 Pandora. It was formerly thought to be the largest of this class but recent work has shown that its diameter is only a quarter of what was previously thought.It...
is named after an astronomical station he set up near
MarseilleMarseille , formerly known as Massalia , is the 2nd most populous French city as well as the oldest city in France...
.