Julius Heinrich Franz

Julius Heinrich Georg Franz ( born June 28, 1847 in Rummelsburg, Pomerania, † January 28, 1913 in Breslau) was a German astronomer.

Francis was the son of a medical council and district physician. He studied at the universities of Greifswald, Halle and Berlin, the subjects astronomy and mathematics and was able in 1872 to successfully complete this course of study in 1872 with a doctorate. His dissertation dealt with the Foucault pendulum ( About the Foucault pendulum).

In 1874 he was astronomer at the Observatory of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. In 1875 he qualified as a professor there at the University of Neuchâtel. Since 1877, he worked as an Observer of the observatory Königsberg. In 1882 he headed the German expedition to Aiken, South Carolina to observe the Venus Passage. In 1889 he completed his habilitation at the University of Königsberg, from 1893 he taught as an adjunct professor. from 1897 he was Chair of Astronomy at the University of Breslau and director of the local University Observatory.

From 1885 he was a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Franz dealt primarily with the topography of the moon and provided detailed descriptions of many lunar craters. The lunar crater Franz is named after him.

Francis was the father of the zoologists Victor French

Publications (selection)

• The constants of the physical libration of the Moon, 1889.
• The figure of the moon, 1899.
• The Moon, 1906.
• The marginal landscapes of the moon, 1913.