Wilhelm Tempel

Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Temple ( born December 4, 1821 in Niedercunnersdorf, Saxony, † March 16, 1889 in Arcetri, Italy ) was a German astronomer and lithographer. He discovered, among others, five asteroids and comets twelve.

• 3.1 asteroids
• 3.2 comets 3.2.1 Periodic comets
• 3.2.2 Non-periodic comets

Life

Temple learned from 1837 in Meissen, the craft of the lithographer. From 1840 he embarked on a multi-year wanderings, inter alia, in the cities of Copenhagen, Stockholm and Christiania (now Oslo) took him.

In 1858 he settled as a freelance lithographer in Venice and got married. His lithographs and drawings were appreciated for their accuracy of detail, and so he worked for botanists and other scientists.

Temple, which fascinated him since his school days for astronomy, acquired a four-inch refractor in 1858. With this nowadays seems rather modest instrument, he discovered a comet in 1859 and a reflection nebula in the Pleiades ( see figure). The latter discovery was initially doubted, as the Pleiades had been closely observed without the faint nebula was discovered by then.

Due to his lack of academic training temple was regarded as an amateur astronomer in Germany and received no employment. Even the naming rights for the discover of him celestial bodies was denied. Because of his achievements, he was appointed to the Imperial Observatory of Marseilles, and thus also the privilege to name objects in 1860. In the following years he discovered five asteroids and comets twelve, including the comet Tempel -Tuttle.

After the outbreak of the Franco-German War in 1870 he was expelled from the country and went back to Italy. In 1875 he took over the management of the recently -built observatory of Arcetri, south of Florence. The refractor was installed there with an aperture of 283 mm and a focal length of 5370 mm, the largest telescope in Italy. With this instrument he examined nebulous objects. 1885 appeared in Prague his publication About nebulae - according to the observations made ​​in the years 1876-1879 with the refractor of Amici at the Royal Observatory at Arcetri near Florence.

The surrealist painter Max Ernst temple a monument in 1964 in his book artist Maximiliana or unlawful exercise of astronomy. Excerpts from this are in the opened in 2005 to see the Max Ernst Museum in Brühl. In the basement of the museum the work of the temple is represented.

Honors

For his achievements in the field of astronomy Temple has won several awards. In his memory, the 40 km large crater on the moon temple and the asteroid ( 3808 ) temple was named. Several comets discovered by him bear his name, including the comet Tempel 1, the target of NASA's Deep Impact mission in 2005.

Prizes and awards

Naming

Discoveries

Asteroids

• March 4, 1861: (64 ) Angelina
• March 8, 1861: (65 ) Cybele
• August 29, 1862: (74 ) Galatea
• September 30, 1864: (81 ) Terpsichore
• February 17, 1868: (97 ) Klotho

Comets

Periodic comets

Non-periodic comets

• April 2, 1859: C/1859 G1
• October 24, 1860: C/1860 U1 (1860 IV)
• November 5, 1863: C/1863 V1 (1863 IV)
• July 5, 1864: C/1864 N1 (1864 II)
• March 22 1868 to 1868 I
• October 12, 1869: C/1869 T1 (1869 II)
• May 29 1870: C/1870 K1 (1870 I, Friedrich August Theodor Winnecke )
• June 14, 1871: C/1871 L1 (1871 II)
• November 3, 1871: C/1871 V1 (1871 IV)

Reception

Inspired by the Georgian author, painter and publisher Iliazd Max Ernst created the artist's book Maximiliana, ou l' exercice de l' illégal astronomy: '' Art de voir de Guillaume Temple by Max Ernst, published in 1964 in Iliazd in Paris. Max Ernst created graphics with surreal heavenly bodies as a tribute to the astronomers.

Peter Schamoni turned together with Max Ernst in 1966 a short film about Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht stamp with the title The unlawful exercise of astronomy. The twelve-minute film has won several awards.