Paul Guthnick
Paul Guthnick (born 12 January 1879 in hit village on the Rhine; † September 6, 1947 in Berlin) was a German astronomer.
Life
Guthnick was known as a specialist in the measurement of the brightnesses of stars by means of a photocell on the basis of the work of Julius Elster and Hans Geitel. This known as photoelectric photometry method was the first objective method for determining the brightness of stars. Guthnick developed this procedure, together with Richard Prague from 1913 at the Royal Observatory at Berlin- Neubabelsberg - 1918 University Observatory - to perfection. Joel Stebbins trod in the United States a similar way, without that he came to reproducible results before 1931/1932. The techniques Guthnicks could be simplified only in the 1950s by the use of corresponding light-sensitive electron tubes.
After his training as an astronomer, he worked from 1901 as Observer at the Royal Observatory in Berlin. He occupied himself with variable stars and wrote his thesis on Mira Ceti.
When the conditions of observation by the rapid growth of the city were getting worse there, he led from June 9, 1906 within sample observations and then proposed the park Babelsberg as an ideal location before. On 1 November 1906, the result was forwarded to the Ministry of Culture, which eventually approved the proposal.
After the relocation of the Berlin Observatory and its completion in Neubabelsberg he moved there and worked on the study of variable stars by means of photoelectric photometry. He discovered in 1918 lowest brightness fluctuations of the Vega. Already on January 24, 1916, he was promoted to associate professor Guthnicks for Astrophysics of the Berlin Friedrich- Wilhelms-Universität.
Eventually, he became in 1921 director of the observatory of Berlin- Neubabelsberg. In the following years he tried to reach through broad-based research an international scope, and succeeded him in this institute. At the same time he taught at the University of Berlin astronomy. From his teaching some excellent astronomers emerged, such as Bohumil Sternberg. He wrote articles for the quarterly magazine of the Astronomical Society, whose board he was a member from 1924 to 1929. Then he retreated somewhat, but remained lifelong member of society.
Paul Guthnick developed in the early 1920s, the idea of a photographic sky monitoring for the systematic search for brightness variable stars over a long period of time. 1926 Cuno Hoffmeister began at the Sonneberg Observatory in order to move this project to observe the northern night sky as part of the Sonneberg sky monitoring in practice. This project will run until today.
In 1929 he made an expedition to Windhoek in South West Africa. There he completed his studies with the stars of the southern hemisphere. He was also instrumental in that in Windhoek the Astronomical Station was built.
After the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933 to Guthnick fit to the new conditions. Due to his scientific achievements, however, he succeeded again and again to fight against the power structures. So he condemned in a report favored by Himmler Welteislehre as Bolshevik, without attaining any consequences arose. Also he succeeded in 1938 in collaboration with Cuno Hoffmeister that Paul Ahnert was reintroduced into the civil service against the rules.
In 1970, a crater about 36 km in diameter on the moon was named after him.