Charles Nordmann and Multicolour Stellar Photometry
Abstract
Charles Nordmann (1881-1940), an astronomer at the Paris Observatory, was the first to determine the effective temperature of stars with his photometre heterochrome, simultaneously and independently of Rosenberg, Wilsing and Scheiner in Germany. He is also the remote precursor of the multicolour photometry of Johnson and Morgan. In spite of the quality of his temperature determinations, which were as good or better than those made by spectrophotometry, he rapidly fell into oblivion because of some failures in his scientific work. We examine his activity in the international context of the time, and explain why he has been forgotten, to be rediscovered only recently.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage
- Pub Date:
- November 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010JAHH...13..207L
- Keywords:
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- multicolour stellar photometry;
- stellar spectrophotometry;
- interstellar medium;
- Paris Observatory;
- Charles Nordmann;
- François Arago;
- Maurice Loewy;
- Benjamin Baillaud;
- Jules Baillaud;
- Petr Nicolaevich Lebedev;
- Hans Rosenberg;
- Julius Scheiner;
- Johannes Wilsing;
- Hermann Carl Vogel;
- Gavrijl Adrianovich Tikhoff