| Authorised form of name | Struve; Friedrich Georg Wilhelm (1793-1864); astronomer and geodesist |
| Other forms of name | Vasily Yakovlevich |
| Dates | 1793-1864 |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Place of birth | Altona, Lower Saxony, Germany, Europe |
| Date of birth | 15 April 1793 |
| Place of death | St. Petersburg, Pulkovo, Leningrad Oblast, Russia, Asia |
| Date of death | 23 November 1864 |
| Occupation | Astronomer |
| Research field | Geodesy |
| Astronomy |
| Activity | Education: Imperial University of Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia) (1808)
Career: Professor of astronomy and mathematics at the University of Dorpat (1813); Director of Dorpat Observatory (1817) where he achieved international acclaim, particularly after 1824, following receipt of the Fraunhofer equatorial telescope, with the 9.6-inch achromatic objective lens (the largest aperture for its day); published his studies on multiple-star systems in Catalogus novus (1827), Mensurae micrometricae (1837), and Positiones mediae (1852); began efforts to measure the parallax of Vega (1835); founder and director of the Pulkovo Observatory (1839); continued observing binary stars and moved into the areas of practical astronomy and geodesy, published Beschreibung der Breitengradmessung in den Ostseeprovinzen Russlands (1831); founded the Russian Geographical Society (1845).
Memberships: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1833); Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1834); American Philosophical Society (1853)
Medals/Awards: Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1826) |
| Membership category | Foreign Member |
| Date of election | 15/03/1827 |
| Age at election | 34 |
| Proposer | H Davy Pres RS; Everard Home; Thomas Young; John Geo Children; F Beaufort; J F W Herschel; J South; Wm H Wollaston; G Pear[son]; Francis Baily; Charles Babbage |
| RSActivity | Medals and prizes:
Royal Medal 1827 |
| Relationships | Parents: Jacob Struve, mathematician
Spouse: 1) Emilie Wall (1815); 2) Johanna Henriette Francisca Bartels (1834);
Children: Otto Wilhelm Struve (For Mem RS 1873); Heinrich Wilhelm von Struve, chemist; Bernhard Wilhelm von Struve, government official in Siberia; Karl von Struve, Russian ambassador to Japan, the United States, and the Netherlands
Grandchildren: Hermann von Struve |
| PublishedWorks | RCN R64862
RCN 59648
RCN R65424
RCN R65425
RCN R64863
RCN R64864
RCN 34080
RCN R65427
RCN R65428
RCN R65429
RCN R65430
RCN 34079
RCN 37807
RCN 37808
RCN R65407 |
| OtherInfo | Founded the modern study of binary stars.
Initiated a triangulation survey later named Struve Geodetic Arc.
The asteroid 768 Struveana was named jointly in his honour and that of Otto Wilhelm and Karl Hermann Struve. |
| Source | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DSB; Encyclopedia Britannica [URL; https://www.britannica.com/biography/Friedrich-Georg-Wilhelm-von-Struve; last accessed 20/12/2023]
Obituaries:
Proc Roy Soc 1865 vol 14 pp xx-xxii |
| Code | NA5563 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1827/10 | Struve, Friedrich Georg Wilhelm: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |