Kasimir Romuald Graff

Background

Kasimir Graff was born on February 7, 1878, in Prochnowo, Germany (now Próchnówo, Poland).

Education

After graduation from the secondary school in Poznan, Graff began his studies of astronomy and physics in 1897 at the University of Berlin (now Humboldt University of Berlin), from wich he obtained the Ph.D. degree in 1901.

Career

From 1898 Graff was employed at the Urania Observatory in Berlin. In 1902 he became assistant astronomer at the Hamburg observatory, and in 1909 when the latter was transferred to Bergedorf, he was appointed associate astronomer. In this position he was obliged to lecture on spherical astronomy. During World War I Graff served as an expert on geodetic surveys. In 1917 he received the honorary title of professor, and at the end of the war he continued photometric observations with instruments of his own design at Bergedorf.

In 1928 he was appointed full professor of practical astronomy at the University of Vienna. There he did his best to modernize the great university observatory. In order to avoid the difficulties in stellar photometry caused by the increasing electric illumination in Vienna, he spent several months every year on the islands of Mallorca and Šolta (Yugoslavia) equipped with instruments of moderate size. Forced to resign from the observatory after the German occupation of Austria in 1938, Graff reassumed the directorship in 1945 but retired three years later.

Graff was one of the last of those pioneers in astrophysics who by visual observations promoted photometry and colorimetry, as well as planetary and lunar research. In his stellar photometers he used, instead of “nichols,” wedges of gray glass, even copying them photographically in circular form. A combination of assorted wedges of blue and yellow glass for the gradual adjustment of color of an artificial star to that of a natural star was the main part of his colorimeter. Most of his papers contain long lists of stars classified by magnitude and color-type. He made many drawings of the surface features of Mars during its oppositions in 1898, 1901, 1909, and 1924. He occasionally made other observations which cannot be described here in detail. He published valuable textbooks on geographical position-finding and on astrophysics and, in collaboration with M. Beyer, a star atlas.

Achievements

• Kasimir Graff was an eminent astronomer. He was very adept in creating planetary maps from visual observations. He also worked on measuring radiation emitted from stars, and invented and built new instrumentation for this purpose, includingd new types of calorimeter and photometer detectors. The craters Graff on the Moon and on Mars are named after him.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Grundriss der geographischen Ortsbestimmung aus astronomischen Beobachtungen 1914
  • Grundriss der Astrophysik 1928

Politics

Graff rejected the Nazi-supported philosophy of "Welteislehre," which was the reason of his dismissal from the Vienna Observatory, although he officially was removed because of unproven charges of embezzlement.

Membership

Graff was a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and of the Academia Pontificia Vaticana.

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography