Astronomische Nachrichten
Encyclopedia
Astronomische Nachrichten (Astronomical Notes), one of the first international journals in the field of astronomy
, was founded in 1821
by the German astronomer Heinrich Christian Schumacher
. It claims to be the oldest astronomical journal in the world that is still being published. The publication today specializes in articles on solar physics
, extragalactic astronomy
, cosmology
, geophysics
, and instrumentation for these fields.
The journal was founded in 1821 by Heinrich Christian Schumacher
, under the patronage of Christian VIII of Denmark
, and quickly became the world's leading professional publication for the field of astronomy, succeeding where others had failed or not achieved the same renown. Schumacher edited the journal at the observatory in Altona
, then part of Denmark
, later part of Prussia, and today part of the German city of Hamburg
.
Schumacher edited the first 31 issues of the journal, from its founding in 1821 until his death in 1850. These early issues ran to hundreds of pages, and consisted mostly of letters sent by astronomers to Schumacher, reporting their observations. The journal proved to be a great success, and over the years Schumacher received thousands of letters from hundreds of contributors. The letters were published in the language in which they were submitted, often German, but also English, Italian and other languages.
The journal's renown was acknowledged by the British astronomer John Herschel
(then secretary to the Royal Astronomical Society
) in a letter to the Danish King in 1840, writing that Astronomische Nachrichten was:
Other astronomical journals were also founded around this time, such as the British Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
, which was founded in 1827. It was the importance of Astronomische Nachrichten, however, that led the American astronomer Benjamin A. Gould in 1850 to found The Astronomical Journal
in the United States.
Following Schumacher's death, the interim director of the observatory and editor of the journal was Adolphus Cornelius Petersen, who had worked at the observatory with Schumacher for 24 years from around 1825. Petersen, who died in 1854, was later aided as editor by the Danish astronomer Thomas Clausen, who had also previously worked at the observatory.
The editor from 1854 was the German astronomer Christian August Friedrich Peters
, who had taken over as director of the observatory at Altona. In 1872, the observatory moved from Altona to Kiel
, from where Peters continued to publish the journal until his death in 1880, aided in his final years by his son Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Peters. The journal would continue to be published in Kiel until 1938.
Following Peters's death, Adalbert Krueger served as the new director of the observatory and editor of the journal from 1881 until he died in 1896. At this time the journal was the organ of the Astronomische Gesellschaft
. The editor from 1896 until his death in 1907 was the German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz
, who had previously assisted Krueger. Kreutz edited volumes 140 to 175. Other staff members during the period from 1880 to 1907 included the astronomers Richard Schorr
and Elis Strömgren
.
The editor from 1907 to 1938 was the German astronomer Hermann Kobold
.
After Kobold retired in 1938, the journal's editorial office moved from Kiel to Berlin
, and during the Second World War
the journal was published by the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut (Astronomical Calculation Institute) in Berlin-Dahlem. In 1945, the institute was relocated to Heidelberg
, but the journal remained in the Berlin region.
After the war, Astronomische Nachrichten was edited by Hans Kienle, director of the Astrophysical Observatory of Potsdam. The observatory was in Potsdam
, on the outskirts of Berlin, and from 1948 the journal was published by the publishing company Akademie-Verlag, under the auspices of the German Academy of Sciences Berlin
. One of Kienle's students, Johann Wempe (1906-1980) succeeded him as editor in 1951 and held the post for 22 years.
From 1949, and officially from the 1950s until the reunification of Germany
in 1990, the journal was published in the German Democratic Republic
, behind the Iron Curtain
. From 1974 onwards, the journal issues list a chief editor and an editorial board, and the journal was bilingual, with the same material published in German and English. Akademie-Verlag was taken over by VCH in 1990.
From 1996 to the present day (from volume 317), the journal has been published by Wiley-VCH. This company was formed in 1996 when the German publishing company Verlag Chemie (founded 1921) joined John Wiley and Sons. The journal's editorial offices remain in Potsdam, at the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
, and the current editor (2007) is K. G. Strassmeier.
The back catalogue of the journal includes 43,899 articles in 99,565 pages in 328 volumes, published over a period of over 180 years.
Although the journal was founded in 1821, the first volume was dated 1823. Volume 1 (1823) consisted of 33 issues and a total of 516 pages. The next year, volume 2 (1824), saw 34 issues and 497 pages. Apart from the years 1830-1832, when two volumes were published in 1831 and none in 1830 or 1832, single volumes of around 20-30 issues were published each year until 1846. Then it was mostly two volumes a year until 1884. There were a record number of five volumes published in 1884. Most years from 1884 to 1914 had three or more volumes. The years 1915-1919 (coinciding with World War I
) saw a dip in publication, with 1916 and 1919 only featuring one volume. From 1920 to 1940, most years saw three volumes published. Only one volume per year was published from 1941 to 1943, and the journal was not published at all from 1944 to 1946 (Berlin suffered heavy damage in the closing years of World War II
). From 1947 to the present, the journal has published a volume per year in most years, but did not publish at all in some years in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. From 1974 to 1996, the journal was published as 6 issues a year, with each volume being 300-400 pages.
Under the new publishers, Wiley, this pattern continued until 2003, at which point the number of issues per year increased to 9 due to the publication of supplementary issues. Since 2004 there have been 10 issues a year. In 2006, volume 327, there were 10 issues and 1100 pages.
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, was founded in 1821
1821 in science
The year 1821 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* Johann Franz Encke calculates that Comet Encke has a periodic orbit, the second comet after Comet Halley for which this has been discovered....
by the German astronomer Heinrich Christian Schumacher
Heinrich Christian Schumacher
Heinrich Christian Schumacher was a German-Danish astronomer.-Biography:He was born at Bramstedt, in Holstein, and studied at Kiel, Jena, Copenhagen, and Göttingen. In 1810, he became adjunct professor of astronomy in Copenhagen...
. It claims to be the oldest astronomical journal in the world that is still being published. The publication today specializes in articles on solar physics
Solar physics
For the physics journal, see Solar Physics Solar physics is the study of our Sun. It is a branch of astrophysics that specializes in exploiting and explaining the detailed measurements that are possible only for our closest star...
, extragalactic astronomy
Extragalactic astronomy
Extragalactic astronomy is the branch of astronomy concerned with objects outside our own Milky Way Galaxy. In other words, it is the study of all astronomical objects which are not covered by galactic astronomy, the next level of galactic astronomy....
, cosmology
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
, geophysics
Geophysics
Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...
, and instrumentation for these fields.
Early history
Heinrich Christian Schumacher
Heinrich Christian Schumacher was a German-Danish astronomer.-Biography:He was born at Bramstedt, in Holstein, and studied at Kiel, Jena, Copenhagen, and Göttingen. In 1810, he became adjunct professor of astronomy in Copenhagen...
, under the patronage of Christian VIII of Denmark
Christian VIII of Denmark
Christian VIII , was king of Denmark from 1839 to 1848 and, as Christian Frederick, king of Norway in 1814. He was the eldest son of Hereditary Prince Frederick of Denmark and Norway and Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, born in 1786 at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen...
, and quickly became the world's leading professional publication for the field of astronomy, succeeding where others had failed or not achieved the same renown. Schumacher edited the journal at the observatory in Altona
Altona, Hamburg
Altona is the westernmost urban borough of the German city state of Hamburg, on the right bank of the Elbe river. From 1640 to 1864 Altona was under the administration of the Danish monarchy. Altona was an independent city until 1937...
, then part of Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, later part of Prussia, and today part of the German city of Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
.
Schumacher edited the first 31 issues of the journal, from its founding in 1821 until his death in 1850. These early issues ran to hundreds of pages, and consisted mostly of letters sent by astronomers to Schumacher, reporting their observations. The journal proved to be a great success, and over the years Schumacher received thousands of letters from hundreds of contributors. The letters were published in the language in which they were submitted, often German, but also English, Italian and other languages.
The journal's renown was acknowledged by the British astronomer John Herschel
John Herschel
Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS ,was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work...
(then secretary to the Royal Astronomical Society
Royal Astronomical Society
The Royal Astronomical Society is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research . It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV...
) in a letter to the Danish King in 1840, writing that Astronomische Nachrichten was:
Other astronomical journals were also founded around this time, such as the British Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society is one of the world's leading scientific journals in astronomy and astrophysics. It has been in continuous existence since 1827 and publishes peer-reviewed letters and papers reporting original research in relevant fields...
, which was founded in 1827. It was the importance of Astronomische Nachrichten, however, that led the American astronomer Benjamin A. Gould in 1850 to found The Astronomical Journal
Astronomical Journal
The Astronomical Journal is a peer-reviewed monthly scientific journal owned by the American Astronomical Society and currently published by Institute of Physics Publishing. It is one of the premier journals for astronomy in the world...
in the United States.
Later history
The editor from 1854 was the German astronomer Christian August Friedrich Peters
Christian August Friedrich Peters
Christian August Friedrich Peters was a German astronomer. He was the father of astronomer Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Peters.He was born in Hamburg and died in Kiel....
, who had taken over as director of the observatory at Altona. In 1872, the observatory moved from Altona to Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
, from where Peters continued to publish the journal until his death in 1880, aided in his final years by his son Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Peters. The journal would continue to be published in Kiel until 1938.
Following Peters's death, Adalbert Krueger served as the new director of the observatory and editor of the journal from 1881 until he died in 1896. At this time the journal was the organ of the Astronomische Gesellschaft
Astronomische Gesellschaft
The Astronomische Gesellschaft is an astronomical society established in 1863 in Heidelberg, the second oldest astronomical society after the Royal Astronomical Society....
. The editor from 1896 until his death in 1907 was the German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz
Heinrich Kreutz
Heinrich Carl Friedrich Kreutz was a German astronomer, most notable for his studies of the orbits of several sungrazing comets, which revealed that they were all related objects, produced when a very large sun-grazing comet fragmented several hundred years previously...
, who had previously assisted Krueger. Kreutz edited volumes 140 to 175. Other staff members during the period from 1880 to 1907 included the astronomers Richard Schorr
Richard Schorr
Richard Reinhard Emil Schorr , was an astronomer. The lunar crater Schorr and the asteroid 1235 Schorria are named after him....
and Elis Strömgren
Elis Strömgren
Svante Elis Strömgren was a Swedish-Danish astronomer.Strömgren was born in 1870 in Helsingborg, Scania. He received his doctorate at Lund University in 1898, becoming docent there the same year. He worked at the University of Kiel from 1901, and assisted in the publication of Astronomische...
.
The editor from 1907 to 1938 was the German astronomer Hermann Kobold
Hermann Kobold
Hermann Kobold was a German astronomer.-Biography:Hermann Albert Kobold was born in Hanover, Germany third of five children of the carpenter August Kobold and his wife Dorothea Kobold...
.
After Kobold retired in 1938, the journal's editorial office moved from Kiel to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, and during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the journal was published by the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut (Astronomical Calculation Institute) in Berlin-Dahlem. In 1945, the institute was relocated to Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, but the journal remained in the Berlin region.
After the war, Astronomische Nachrichten was edited by Hans Kienle, director of the Astrophysical Observatory of Potsdam. The observatory was in Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
, on the outskirts of Berlin, and from 1948 the journal was published by the publishing company Akademie-Verlag, under the auspices of the German Academy of Sciences Berlin
German Academy of Sciences Berlin
The German Academy of Sciences at Berlin , later renamed Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic was the most important research institution of East Germany.The academy was founded in 1946 by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany to continue the long tradition of the...
. One of Kienle's students, Johann Wempe (1906-1980) succeeded him as editor in 1951 and held the post for 22 years.
From 1949, and officially from the 1950s until the reunification of Germany
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
in 1990, the journal was published in the German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
, behind the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
. From 1974 onwards, the journal issues list a chief editor and an editorial board, and the journal was bilingual, with the same material published in German and English. Akademie-Verlag was taken over by VCH in 1990.
From 1996 to the present day (from volume 317), the journal has been published by Wiley-VCH. This company was formed in 1996 when the German publishing company Verlag Chemie (founded 1921) joined John Wiley and Sons. The journal's editorial offices remain in Potsdam, at the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam is a German research institute. It is the successor of the Berlin Observatory founded in 1700 and of the Astrophysical Observatory Potsdam founded in 1874. The latter was the world's first observatory to emphasize explicitly the research area of...
, and the current editor (2007) is K. G. Strassmeier.
The back catalogue of the journal includes 43,899 articles in 99,565 pages in 328 volumes, published over a period of over 180 years.
Publication format and schedule
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
) saw a dip in publication, with 1916 and 1919 only featuring one volume. From 1920 to 1940, most years saw three volumes published. Only one volume per year was published from 1941 to 1943, and the journal was not published at all from 1944 to 1946 (Berlin suffered heavy damage in the closing years of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
). From 1947 to the present, the journal has published a volume per year in most years, but did not publish at all in some years in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. From 1974 to 1996, the journal was published as 6 issues a year, with each volume being 300-400 pages.
Under the new publishers, Wiley, this pattern continued until 2003, at which point the number of issues per year increased to 9 due to the publication of supplementary issues. Since 2004 there have been 10 issues a year. In 2006, volume 327, there were 10 issues and 1100 pages.
External links
- Official web page
- First editorial by Heinrich Christian Schumacher in 1823 (German Wikisource)
- Astronomische Nachrichten: News in Astronomy and Astrophysics 1823-1998 - backcatalogue from Wiley InterScience
- Astronomische Nachrichten search link from NASA's Astrophysics Data SystemAstrophysics Data SystemThe Astrophysics Data System , developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration , is an online database of over eight million astronomy and physics papers from both peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources...
(alternative way to access old issues) - Astronomische Nachrichten entry from Journal Info