Busch, August Ludwig

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Busch, August Ludwig

(b Danzig, Prussia, 7 September 1804; d. Königsberg, Prussia, 30 September 1855). astronomy.

Busch was introduced to astronomy by Friedrich Bessel, whose assistant he became in 1831. When Bessel died in 1846, Busch succeeded him as director of the astronomical observatory in Königsberg. There he chiefly reduced the observations made by James Bradley in Kew and Wanstead, and from these he deduced improved values for the constants of aberration and nutation. Busch was also a pioneer in astronomical photography; in 1851 he succeeded in taking a daguerreotype of the eclipsed sun. III health prevented him from fully developing his work.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Busch’s publlished works include his Reduction of the Observations Made by J. Bradley at Kew and Wansted (Oxford, 1838); and Verzeichnis sāmtlicher Werke Bessels (Königsberg, 1849). Poggendorff, I, gives a more complete list of his work.

Bernhard Sticker