About Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (Russian: Василий Яковлевич Струве, romanized: Vasily Yakovlevich Struve; 15 April 1793 – 23 November [O.S. 11 November] 1864) was a Baltic German astronomer and geodesist. He is best known for studying double stars and initiating a triangulation survey later named Struve Geodetic Arc in his honor. == Life == He was born to the aristocratic Struve family at Altona, Duchy of Holstein (then a part of the Denmark–Norway kingdoms), the son of Jacob Struve (1755–1841). To avoid military service during the French occupation of Holstein, his family moved to the Russian Empire, equipped with Danish passports. In 1808 he entered the Imperial University of Dorpat, where he first studied philology, but soon turned his attention to astronomy. From 1813 to 1820, he taught at the university and collected data at the Dorpat Observatory, and in 1820 became a full professor and director of the observatory. His teachings had an effect still felt at the university. Struve was occupied with research on double stars and geodesy in Dorpat until 1839, when he founded and became director of the new Pulkovo Observatory near St Petersburg. Among other honors, he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1826. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1827 and was awarded their Royal Medal the same year.
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