Marian Albertovich Kowalski

Marian Albertovich Kowalski[a] (Russian: Мариан Альбертович Ковальский; 15 August 1821 or 15 October 1821 – 28 May 1884 or 9 July 1884) was a Polish-Russian astronomer.

His patronymic is alternatively given as Voytekhovich or Voytsekhovich (Войтехович or Войцехович), which suggests his father's name was Wojciech.

His most important work was on the analysis of the proper motion of 3,136 stars from James Bradley's catalog, which was the first usable method to deduce the rotation of the Milky Way galaxy.

Based on this work, he disproved that a single massive central body in the center of our galaxy was responsible for the motion of the stars.

He was the father of Aleksandr Marianovich Kowalski, who worked at Pulkovo Observatory and who died on July 6, 1902, at the age of 44.