Ludwig Struve

Gustav Wilhelm Ludwig von Struve (November 1, 1858 – November 4, 1920) was a Baltic German astronomer, part of the famous Baltic German Struve family. In Russian, his name is sometimes given as Lyudvig Ottovich Struve (Людвиг Оттович Струве) or Lyudvig Ottonovich Struve (Людвиг Оттонович Струве). Biography Gustav Wilhelm Ludwig von Struve was born in 1858 in Tsarskoye Selo – a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of St. Petersburg. He was the fourth son of Otto Wilhelm von Struve and Emilie Dyrssen (1823–1868) and a younger brother of astronomer Hermann Struve. Ludwig followed his family traditions and between 1876 and 1880 studied astronomy at the Imperial University of Dorpat. For his post-graduate research started at the Pulkovo Observatory which was headed by his father. In 1883, Ludwig defended his PhD thesis on "Resultate aus den in Pulkowa angestellen Vergleichungen von Procyon mit benachbarten Sternen" (Results obtained in Pulkovo on relation of Procyon with the neighboring stars). Between 1883 and 1886, Struve was staying abroad in several European observatories, including those in Bonn, Milan, Paris and Leipzig. His major influences in astronomy were his father and the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli. Between 1886 and 1894, Struve worked as an astronomer at the Tartu Observatory. In 1887, using results obtained during his European trip, he prepared and defended the habilitation thesis titled "Neue Bestimmung der Constante der Precession und der eigenen Bewegung des Sonnensystems" (New determination of the constant of precession and of the motion of the Solar System). Research A few years after retirement of his father, in 1894, Ludwig moved to the University of Kharkiv. There, in 1897 he became professor in astronomy and geodesy and director of the observatory. Prior to Struve, the Kharkiv Observatory was not registered within the Russian leveling network and the altitude of Kharkiv was based on rather inaccurate trigonometric leveling conducted by local triangulation. It took Struve five years of hard work to include the observatory to the Russian leveling network. In 1912, he was elected as Dean of the Physics and Mathematics Department of Kharkiv University. In 1914, he founded a workshop of fine mechanics at the department and headed it for five years.