John Louis Emil Dreyer (1852-1926) (original) (raw)
John Louis Emil Dreyer (February 13, 1852 - September 14, 1926)
[ ![[dreyer.jpg]](http://messier.obspm.fr/Pics/History/dreyer.jpg)
](../../Pics/History/dreyer.jpg)Born and grown up in Copenhagen, John Louis Emil Dreyer got interested in history, math and physics.
In 1874, he was appointed at Birr Castle as an assistant of Lawrence Parsons, the Fourth Earl of Rosse, son and successor of William Parsons, the thrid Earl or Lord Rosse, and worked with that facility's giant six-foot aperture telescope nicknamed Leviathan, at that time world's largest telescope. Here he began observing and surveying deepsky objects (star clusters, nebulae and galaxies), and in 1877 published a supplement of about 1000 new "nebulae" to John Herschel's General Catalogue (Dreyer 1877).
Also in 1878, he went to Dublin and worked as assistant at Dunsink Observatory from 1878-1882 before he became director of Armagh Observatory 1882-1916.
Armagh Observatory was badly funded at those days and mainly had old, considerably small instruments. So Dreyer concentrated on compiling new catalogs from older observations:
- The Second Armagh Catalogue of Stars
- The New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (NGC) and its supplements forming the Index Catalogues (IC) (Dreyer 1888 [NGC], 1895 [IC I],1908 [IC II]) In particular, the latter two with their overall 13,226 entries have remained standard references for deepsky objects. Originally, Dreyer only had planned to publish a further supplement to the GC when he was asked, by the Royal Astronomical Society, to assemble a "new general catalogue" of nonstellar objects. It may be worth knowing that Dreyer himself discovered 17 of the NGC objects (2 of these won't exist). Other works include historical studies, in particular of Tycho Brahe's work.
J.L.E. Dreyer died at Oxford on September 14, 1926 at age 74.
He was honored by naming a Moon Crater after him (10.0N, 96.9E, 61.0 km diameter, in 1970).
Links
- Short feature of J.L.E. Dreyer
- John Louis Emil Dreyer biography, by John Butler, Armagh Observatory (with a larger version of this image)
- Johann Louis Emil Dreyer images and information, NGC/IC observers
- Biographical info on Dreyer is included in Harold G. Corwin, Jr.'sHistorical Perspective of the NGC/IC catalogs.
- Armagh Observatory
- Dunsink Observatory
- Birr Castle NGC/IC links:
- Interactive NGC Catalog
- The NGC on the Net
- NGC/IC Project References
- J.L.E. Dreyer, 1877. [X.] Supplement to Sir John Herschel's "General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars." Royal Irish Academy Transactions, Vol. XXVI (26). Science. Pp. 381-426 [Bibcode: 1877RIATr..26..381D]. GC 5080-6251.
- J.L.E. Dreyer's NGC and IC catalogs:
- NGC: Dreyer, J. L. E. 1888. New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars. Mem. Roy. Astron. Soc., Vol. 49, Part I, pp. 1-237 [ADS: 1888MmRAS..49....1D] (reprinted 1953, London: Royal Astronomical Society). NGC 1-7840.
- IC I: Dreyer, J. L. E. 1895. Index Catalogue of Nebulae Found in the Years 1888 to 1894, with Notes and Corrections to the New General Catalogue. Mem. Roy. Astron. Soc., Vol. 51, pp. 185-228 [ADS: 1895MmRAS..51..185D] (reprinted 1953, London: Royal Astronomical Society). IC 1-1529.
- IC II: Dreyer, J. L. E. 1908. Second Index Catalogue of Nebulae Found in the Years 1895 to 1907; with Notes and Corrections to the New General Catalogue and to the Index Catalogue for 1888 to 1894. Mem. Roy. Astron. Soc., Vol. 59, Part 2, pp. 105-198 [ADS: 1908MmRAS..59..105D] (reprinted 1953, London: Royal Astronomical Society). IC 1530-5386.
- J.L.E. Dreyer, 1912. Corrections to the New General Catalogue. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 73, pp. 37-40 [ADS: 1912MNRAS..73...37D]
- Orbituary: MNRAS 87, 251 (1927)
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