Hans Ludendorff

Hans Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff ( born May 26, 1873 in Thunow ( Toniewo ) in Koszalin, † 26 June 1941 in Potsdam ) was a German astronomer and astrophysicist. He was the younger brother of General Erich Ludendorff.

Life

Hans Ludendorff worked after studying physics, mathematics and astronomy in Berlin in 1897 as an assistant at the observatory in Hamburg. In 1898 he moved to the Astrophysical Observatory in Potsdam, where he served as Observer and from 1915 worked as Hauptobservator from 1905. From 1921 until his retirement in 1938 Ludendorff was director of the observatory. Between 1920 and 1930 he served on the Board of Directors of the Astronomical Society.

Work

Ludendorff's focus was in the field of variable stars and spectroscopic binaries. So he determined, for example, in 1904 the Periziodität the light curve of the star Almaaz ( ε Aurigae ) to 27.1 years.

A first major work published in 1905 covered the large star cluster Messier 13 in the constellation Hercules. Ludendorff compares the evaluated recordings from 1900 and 1902 with the former Potsdamer photometric work of J. Schreiner. The compiled catalog has 1136 entries.

Ludendorff took in 1923 at the German excursion to the eclipse in part to Mexico. Since 1930, he occupied himself with the calendar and the astronomical knowledge of the Mayas.

Ludendorff was co-founder of the Journal of Astrophysics and editor of the published 1928-1936 Handbook of astrophysics.