BornAltona (Hamburg, Germany), 15 April 1846
DiedGöttingen, Germany, 1 July 1901
Wilhelm Schur was director of the Göttingen Observatory and, after the death of Ernst Klinkerfues , continued his work and that of Carl Gauss . His father was F. W. Schur, a wine merchant. His mother was born Johanna Tohrmählen. Adolf married Lucie Thorn in 1883.
Schur was the step-grandson of Christian August Friedrich Peters, director of the Hamburg Observatory in Altona after 1854 and editor of the Astronomische Nachrichten. Through Peters, Schur became interested in astronomy at an early age. He studied at the universities of Kiel and Göttingen, the latter at which he obtained his Ph.D. with an orbit determination of 70 Ophiuchi. In 1868, he moved to Berlin and spent some time working with Arthur Auwers . Schur also worked at a geodetic institute (Centralbureau der Europäischen Gradmessung). In 1873, Friedrich Winnecke invited him to Straßburg. His nearly 10 years in Straßburg were interrupted only...
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Selected References
Ambronn, L. (1901). “Todes-Anzeige.” Astronomische Nachrichten 156: 175–176.
Ambronn, L. and W. Schnur (1905). “Die Messungen des Sonnendurchmessers an dem Repsold’schen 6-zöll Heliometer der Sternwarte zu Göttingen.” Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Math.-phys. Klasse, Neue Folge 3, no. 3.
Anon. (1902). “Christian Wilhelm Schur.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 62: 248–249.
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Schnell, A. (2014). Schur, Adolf Christian Wilhelm. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_9430
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