The New International Encyclopædia/Schmidt, Johann Friedrich Julius

SCHMIDT, (1825-84). A German astronomer, born in Eutin. He was employed in the Hamburg Observatory (1842-45), and for a short time at a private observatory at Bilk. He became assistant observer at Bonn (1840), observer at Olmütz (1853), and director of the observatory at Athens (1858), where he remained till his death. He studied the physical nature of comets and of the moon, the brightness and periodicity of stars, and physical geography, especially that of Greece. Besides his contributions to the Astronomische Nachrichten and to the Publications de l'observatoire d'Athènes, he published a revision of Lohrmann's chart of the moon (1877) and a very valuable independent chart (1878), and wrote Der Mond (1856), Vulkanstudien (1874), and Studien über Erdbeben (1875).