Encke

Johann Franz, a German astronomer; born in Hamburg in 1791. He studied under the astronomer Gau at Gottingen. During the War of Liberation (1813-1815) he served as artillerist in the German army; after the peace he became a istant in the observatory of Seeberg, near Gotha. Here he calculated the orbit of the comet observed by Me chain, Mi Herschel, and Pons, predicted its return, and detected a gradual acceleration of movement ascribed by him to the presence of a resisting medium. The comet is now known as Encke’s comet. The fame of_ his works, “The Distance of the Sun,” and “The Transit of Venus of 1769,” led to his appointment as Director of the Berlin Observatory (1825), a a tion which he hcld till his death, 1865.