, the first of a family of astronomers, of considerable note, was
, the first of a family of astronomers,
of considerable note, was born at Guben, in Lower Lusatia, in 1640, and educated at Leipsic, where he acquired
reputation by the almanacs which he published. In 1692
he married Mary Margaret Winckehnan, who rendered him
much useful assistance by making astronomical observations for the construction of his Ephemerides. In 1701,
on the establishment of the academy of sciences at Berlin
by Frederic I. king of Prussia, that prince appointed him
a member of the society, and astronomer in ordinary, with
an honourable pension for his support. He died at Berlin
in 1710, at the age of seventy-one years. He had been
in the habit of corresponding with all the learned societies
of Europe, and published a variety of astronomical treatises,
which are in considerable estimation. His wife, Mary
Margaret, the daughter of a Lutheran clergyman at Panitzsh, a village near Leipsic, where she was born in 1670,
was early noticed for her astronomical talents, and in 1702,
some years after her marriage, she first saw a comet, upon,
which M. Kirch published his observations. In 1707 she
discovered a peculiar aurora borealis, mentioned in the
Memoirs of the academy of sciences at Paris for 1716.
These exertions of her genius procured her the esteem of
the learned at Berlin, notwithstanding which she was in
very low circumstances when her husband died. She contrived to maintain herself and educate her children, by constructing almanacs; and, in 1711, she published a dissertation entitled “Preparations for observing the grand Conjunctions of Saturn, Jupiter, &c.
” Soon after this she found
a patron in the baron de Throsick, and on his death two
years afterwards, removed to Dantzic, when Peter the Great
wished to engage her to settle in his empire. She preferred
her native country, and, in 1716, accompanied her son to
Berlin, where she was appointed astronomer to the academy
of sciences in that city, and died there in 1720. Their
son Christian Fkederic, born at Guben in 1694, who also
discovered an early and very strong bias for scientific pursuits, commenced his studies at Berlin, and afterwards
continued them at Halle, whence he made excursions for
improvement to Nuremberg, Leipsic, and Prussia. He
was employed a considerable time in the observatory at
Dantzic, and during his residence here, the czar, Peter
the Great, offered him an establishment at Moscow; but
his attachment to his mother, who was averse from leaving
Germany, led him to decline it. In 1717 he was made
member of the academy of sciences at Berlin, and in 1723
he was chosen a corresponding member of the royal academy of sciences at Paris, and he shewed himself worthy
of that distinction by the frequent valuable contributions
which he transmitted to them during the remainder of his
life. He died in 1740, in the forty-sixth year of his age.
He published several works connected with astronomy,
which were in considerable reputation at the period in
which he flourished.