Abstract
ASTRONOMICAL science has lost three of its votaries during the present month. Dr. C. F. W. Peters died on December 2, and Father F. Denza, as well as Mr. A. C. Ranyard, passed away on Friday last. Dr. Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Peters, Director of the Königsberg Observatory, died on December 2, after a protracted illness. He was born on April 16, 1844, at the Pulkowa Observatory, where his father, Prof. C. A. F. Peters, held an appointment under the Russian Government. In 1849 his father was appointed to the Chair of Astronomy at Königsberg, and in 1854 he was made Director of the Altona Observatory, which was afterwards transferred to Kiel. The son studied astronomy and mathematics at Berlin, Kiel, München, and Göitingen, and was placed on the staff of the Hamburg and Altona Observatories. Between 1869 and 1872 he made some valuable pendulum observations, chiefly for the Prussian Government. As Privatdocent at Kiel University he undertook a long series of chronometer tests for the German Navy, in the course of which he proved that they are influenced by changes of humidity as well as by changes of temperature. In 1880, upon the death of his father, he edited the Astronomische Nachrichten for a year, after which he was appointed Extraordinary Professor at Kiel University. In 1883 he undertook the direction of the Naval Cbronometric Observatory at Kiel, whence he proceeded in 1888 to the directorship at Königsberg, where he terminated a useful and laborious career.
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Peters—Denza—Ranyard. Nature 51, 179 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/051179a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/051179a0