Beschreibung:

CARL GAUSS WRITES TO ASTRONOMER F.C. WILHELM VON STRUVE RE: OBSERVATIONS OF THE MOON'S ORBIT.GAUSS, CARL FRIEDICH. 1777-1855. Autograph letter signed ("C.F. Gauss.") to Wilhelm von Struve, in German, 3 pp including address, Goettingen 14 July, 1820. Traces of seal, with a small hole.
Carl Friedrich Gauss, one of the greatest scientific virtuosos of all time, referred to as the "Prince of Mathematics," had come to fame as a mathematician and astronomer with publication of his Disquisitiones Mathematicae (1801), and as astronomer with his successful prediction of the orbit of the asteroid Ceres that had been spotted on 1 January that year; Gauss basing his calculations on only three sightings. The method he devised became the standard means of preliminary orbit determination. In this letter he is sharing observations of the Moon made by the astronomer Friedrich Bernhard Gottfried Nicolai (1793-1846), for whom the Moon's Crater Nicolai is named.
Gauss is responding to the astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (1793-1864) who had just been made full professor and director of the observatory at the University of Tartu (Dorpat) in Estonia, and who had mailed Gauss "the second volume of his observations" and announced his visit.
"Recently I have received the latest calculation results about the corresponding observations of the moon from Mr Nicolai. I am writing down for you the ones concerning the longitude of Dorpat
Dorpat - Mannheim
April 23, 3 stars 1 12' .56"0
25 , 2 stars 49.4"
Dorpat - Gottingen
April 22, 3" 1. 7. 6,7
23, 2" 8,7
25, 2" 5,3
Dorpat - Seeberg
April 22, 3" 1.3.56,
24 23, 3" 51,8
25, 2" 50,4
Dorpat - Konigsberg
April 22, 3" 0,24.53,0
23,3" 53,5
Soon more [of it] personally.
P.S I also want to thank you now for your charts of the plausible Oerter [-positions] of the polar star which I received 8 days ago and which satisfy a real need. Some time ago Mr Nicolai also asked me to thank you for his copy of the chart he has received."