Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt

Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt (25 October 1825 in Eutin, Germany – 7 February 1884 in Athens, Greece) was a German astronomer and geophysicist.

As a student at a gymnasium in Hamburg, he impressed with his sense of form and drawing abilities and demonstrated a strong interest in science. When he was 14, he came into the possession of a copy of Selenotopographische Fragmente by Johann Hieronymus Schröter, and this influenced a lifelong interest in selenography, the study of the Moon. He went to school in Hamburg and visited Altona Observatory, where he became acquainted with the well-known map of the Moon made by Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich Mädler.

Rümker taught him the fundamentals of astronomical observation (1842–1845). In 1845, he obtained a position as an assistant at the private Benzenberg observatory in Bilk near Düsseldorf, but a year later joined the Bonn Observatory under Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander. In 1853 he became director of Baron von Unkrechtsberg's private observatory at Olmütz (today Olomouc, Czech Republic). In 1858, he became director of the new Athens Observatory, where the clear skies were very suited to astronomical observation, and where he spent the rest of his career.

He spent most of his career since his youth making drawings of the Moon, preparing a map of it. In 1866 he made the astonishing claim that Linné crater had considerably changed its appearance, which began a controversy that continued for many decades. Coming from such a careful lifelong observer, the claim carried some weight; however, the claim is generally considered unproven.

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