Franz Brünnow

He introduced the teaching of rigorous German analytical methods and trained a number of students who went on to further American astronomy, including Asaph Hall and James Craig Watson (the latter succeeded him as director of Detroit Observatory).

After graduating as PhD in 1843 he took an active part in astronomical work at the Berlin Observatory, under the direction of Johann Franz Encke, contributing numerous important papers on the orbits of comets and minor planets to the Astronomische Nachrichten.

Then, on the death of Sir William Rowan Hamilton in 1865, he accepted the post of Andrews Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College Dublin and Royal Astronomer of Ireland.

His first undertaking at the Dublin Observatory was the erection of an equatorial telescope to carry the fine object-glass presented to the university by Sir James South; and on its completion, he began an important series of researches on stellar parallax.

The first, second and third parts of the Astronomical Observations and Researches made at Dunsink contain the results of these labours, and include discussions of the distances of the stars α Lyrae, ο Draconis, Groombridge 1830, 85 Pegasi, and Bradley 3077, and of the planetary nebula H. iv.