John Dreyer
John Louis Emil Dreyer (
February 13 1852 –
September 14 1926) was a
Danish-
Irish astronomer.
He was born
Johan Ludvig Emil Dreyer in
Copenhagen. In
1874, at the age of 22, he went to
Ireland to work as the assistant of
Lord Rosse (the son and successor of the
Lord Rosse who built the "Leviathan of Parsonstown" telescope). In
1878 he went to
Dunsink Observatory and in
1882 to
Armagh Observatory, where he served as director until
1916.
His major contribution was the monumental
New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, whose catalogue numbers are still in wide use today, as well as two supplementary
Index Catalogues.
Dreyer was also a historian of astronomy. In 1890 he published a biography of
Tycho Brahe, a noted astronomer from his native country, and in his later years he edited Tycho's publications and unpublished correspondence.
History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler (1905), his survey of the history of astronomy, while dated in some respects, is still a sound introduction to the subject. It is currently printed under the title
A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler.
He won the
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in
1916. A
crater on the
Moon is named after him.
* Alexander, A. F. O'D., "Dreyer, Johann Louis Emil,"
Dictionary of Scientific Biography 4:185-186.
* J. L. E. Dreyer,
A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler, 2nd edition, Dover Publications, 1953.
*
Biography with picture
