 Robert Bunsen 1811-1899 |
 Gustav Kirchhoff 1824-1887 |
 J. Norman Lockyer 1836-1920 |
 Joseph Fraunhofer 1787-1826 |
 Margaret Huggins 1848-1915 |
 Angelo Secchi 1818-1878 |
 Hermann Vogel 1811-1899 |
 William Huggins 1824-1910 |
 Anne J. Cannon 1863-1941 |
 Williamina Fleming 1857-1911 |
 Henrietta S. Leavitt 1868-1921 |
 Tulse Hill Observatory |
| Johannes Franz Hartmann was born on January 11th, 1865 in Erfurt, Germany. His study's were carried out in Tuebingen, Berlin and Leipzig and presented his doctoral thesis in Leipzig in 1891 on the Earth's shadow during moon eclipses. He worked in Wien, Austria, with de Ball and again in Leipzig with Bruns. In 1896 he moved to Potsdam were he worked with H.C. Vogel and was promoted to 'Observer' in 1898 and to 'Professor' in 1902. During these years he became one of the leading astrophysicists of his time. His main work was on defining standards for wavelengths as well as in instrumentation (microphotometer). During this time the big refractor with a diameter of 80 cm was installed and Hartmann found the photographic telescope to be of little use: the lenses were simply not good enough. Then he developed a method of testing telescope lenses, which is of course named after him. After refiguring the main lens according to his recommendations the telescope was then in operative condition and he went to work. During his work with this instrument and spectrograph Hartmann found clouds of interstellar Calcium. In 1907 Hartmann was married in Berlin-Wilmersdorf to Angelika Scherr, born in 1881. During the year 1909 he went to Goettingen as director of it's Observatory and Professor at the City's University there. Since the observing conditions in Goettingen were not to his needs he eventually went to La Plata in 1921, where he developed a theory on Novae and discovered that the minor planet Eros is not a spherical body. In 1934 Hartmann got very ill and went back to Goettingen. There he died on September, 13th 1936. He had two sons and one daughter. A number of his paper's submitted to The Astrophysical Journal are available from the NASA Astrophysics Data System Home Page. |
 Sir William Huggins at the eyepiece of his prism spectroscope |
 Sir William's Observatory (1860-68) with 8" refractor and prism spectroscope. |