Name Arnold Kohlschutter Education University of Gottingen | Role Astronomer | |
Died May 28, 1969, Bonn, Germany | ||
Ernst Arnold Kohlschutter (July 6, 1883 – May 28, 1969) was a German astronomer and astrophysicist from Halle.
In 1908 he was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Gottingen under Karl Schwarzschild.
In 1911 he began working at the Mount Wilson observatory, studying the spectra of the Sun and stars. In collaboration with Walter Sidney Adams, and in 1914 they discovered that the absolute luminosity of a star was proportional to the relative intensity of the lines in the spectrum. This allowed astronomers to determine the distance of stars, including main sequence and giants, using the spectroscope.
He became the director of the Bonn observatory in 1925. Therein he was dedicated to astrometric studies.
The crater Kohlschutter on the Moon is named after him.