Marian Albertovich Kowalski
Marian Albertovich Kowalski (Мариан Альбертович Ковальский) (
August 15 1821 or
October 15 1821 –
May 28 1884 or
July 9 1884) was a
Polish-
Russian astronomer. Sometimes his last name is given as
Kovalsky or
Koval'sky or
Koval'skiy. In the scientific literature, his name was given as
Kowalski or
Kowalsky.
He was born in
Dobrzyń in
Poland (called "обжинь in Russian). His
patronymic is alternatively given as Voytekhovich or Voytsekhovich ('ойтехович or 'ойцехович), which suggests his father's name was Wojciech. Confusingly, a few Russian sources even give his name as Marian Albertovich Kovalsky-Voytekhovich, but this seems to be an error.
He graduated from
St. Petersburg University. Beginning in
1852 he was director of the
Kazan Observatory, and dean of faculty of physics and mathematics in
Kazan.
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.
In
celestial mechanics, he found improved methods to deduce a planetary
orbit from observations, and analysed the mathematics of
perturbations in planetary motions. In particular, he made a more accurate determination of
Neptune's orbit. He also found an improved method of determining the orbits of
binary stars.
His important papers were published in
1859 in the book
Recherches astronomiques de l'observatoire de Kasan.
He died in Kazan and is buried in the Catholic cemetery there [
1]. He was the father of
Aleksandr Marianovich Kowalski, who worked at
Pulkovo Observatory and died on
July 6 1902 at the age of 44.[
2] [
3]
Koval'sky crater on
Mars and
Koval'skiy crater on the
Moon were named in his honour.
* http://www.dobrzyn.pl/histo.htm (in Polish; date of birth and death)
* http://www.vgd.ru/K/kovalchk.htm
*
PhotoObituary
*
MNRAS 45 (1885) 208
