Heinrich Christian Schumacher

Heinrich Christian Schumacher (September 3, 1780 – December 28, 1850) was a German-Danish astronomer.

He was born at Bramstedt, in Holstein, and studied at Kiel, Jena, Copenhagen, and Göttingen. In 1810, he became adjunct professor of astronomy in Copenhagen. He directed the Mannheim observatory from 1813 to 1815, and then became professor of astronomy in Copenhagen.

From 1817 he directed the triangulation of Holstein, to which a few years later was added a complete geodetic survey of Denmark (finished after his death). For the sake of the survey, an observatory was established at Altona, and Schumacher resided there permanently. He was chiefly occupied with the publication of Ephemerides (11 parts, 1822–1832) and of the journal Astronomische Nachrichten (founded by himself in 1821 and still being published), of which he edited thirty-one volumes. In 1827 he was elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and in 1829 he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. Schumacher was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1834. His portrait now hangs in the Development Office of the Royal Society.

His son, Richard Schumacher (1827–1902), was his assistant from 1844 to 1850 at the conservatory at Altona. Having become assistant to Carlos Guillermo Moesta (1825–1884), director of the observatory at Santiago de Chile, in 1859, he was associated with the Chilean geodesic survey in 1864. Returning in 1869, he was appointed assistant astronomer at Altona in 1873, and afterwards at Kiel.

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