- Christoph Arnold
-
For the poet (1627-1685), see Christoph Arnold (poet).
Christoph Arnold.
Christoph Arnold (December 17, 1650 – April 15, 1695) was a German amateur astronomer.
Born in Sommerfeld near Leipzig, Arnold was a farmer by profession. Interested in astronomy, he spotted the great comet of 1683, eight days before Hevelius did. He also observed the great comet of 1686. In 1686, Kirch went to Leipzig. There, he observed the great comet of 1686, together with Gottfried Kirch. There, Kirch met his second wife, Maria Margarethe Winckelmann (1670–1720), who had actually learned astronomy from Arnold.
Arnold observed the transit of Mercury in front of the sun on October 13, 1690. For this work, he received some money and a tax exemption from the town of Leipzig. He was the author of Göttliche Gnadenzeichen, in einem Sonnenwunder vor Augen gestellt (Leipzig, 1692) which contains an account of the transit of Mercury in 1690.
He died at Leipzig.
The crater Arnold on the Moon is named after him.
This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.
Sources
This article about a German astronomer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
