Otto Hermann Leopold Heckmann (June 23 1901 – May 13 1983) was a German astronomer.
He directed the Hamburg Observatory from 1941 to 1962, after which he became the first director of the
European Southern ObservatoryThe European Southern Observatory , is an intergovernmental research organization for astronomy, composed and supported by fourteen countries from Europe...
.
[ Encyclopedia Britannica, Otto Heckmann ]He actively contributed to the creation of the third issue of the
Astronomische Gesellschaft KatalogThe Astronomische Gesellschaft Katalog is an astrometric star catalogue. Compilation for the first version, AGK1, was started in 1861 by Friedrich Argelander and published between 1890 and 1954, listing 200 000 stars down to ninth magnitude....
.
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Otto Hermann Leopold Heckmann (June 23 1901 – May 13 1983) was a German astronomer.
He directed the Hamburg Observatory from 1941 to 1962, after which he became the first director of the
European Southern ObservatoryThe European Southern Observatory , is an intergovernmental research organization for astronomy, composed and supported by fourteen countries from Europe...
.
[ Encyclopedia Britannica, Otto Heckmann ]He actively contributed to the creation of the third issue of the
Astronomische Gesellschaft KatalogThe Astronomische Gesellschaft Katalog is an astrometric star catalogue. Compilation for the first version, AGK1, was started in 1861 by Friedrich Argelander and published between 1890 and 1954, listing 200 000 stars down to ninth magnitude....
. He also contributed to
cosmologyPhysical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of our universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution. Cosmology involves itself with studying the motions of the celestial bodies and the first cause....
based on the fundamentals of
general relativityGeneral relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. It unifies special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation, and describes gravity as a...
, and wrote the book
Theorien der Kosmologie.
He won the
James Craig Watson Medalthumb|right|400px|James Craig Watson MedalThe James Craig Watson Medal was established by the bequest of James Craig Watson, and is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for contributions to astronomy.The recipients have been:-External links:*...
in 1961 and the
Bruce MedalThe Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal is awarded every year by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for outstanding lifetime contributions to astronomy. It is named after Catherine Wolfe Bruce, an American patroness of astronomy, and was first awarded in 1898...
in 1964.
Heckmann also served as President of the
International Astronomical UnionThe International Astronomical Union is a collection of professional astronomers, at the Ph.D. level and beyond, active in professional research and education in astronomy...
in 1967, and following a Polish request and under the impression of German acts in Poland during World War II, made the controversial decision to hold an Extraordinary IAU General Assembly in February 1973 in Warsaw, Poland, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of
Nicolaus CopernicusNicolaus Copernicus was the first astronomer to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe...
, shortly after the regular 1973 GA was held in Australia.
The
asteroidthumb|260px|right|[[253 Mathilde]], a [[C-type asteroid]] measuring about across. Photograph taken in 1997 by the [[NEAR Shoemaker]] probe.Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System; they are...
1650 Heckmann1650 Heckmann is a Main-belt Asteroid discovered on October 11, 1937 by Reinmuth, K. at Heidelberg.It is named for astronomer Otto Heckmann .- External links :*...
is named after him.
Works
- Theorien der Kosmologie. Berlin: Springer, 1942 und 1968
- Sterne, Kosmos, Weltmodelle. München: Piper, 1976 (auch dtv-Taschenbuch)
External links
Obituaries