Holger Pedersen (astronomer)

Holger Pedersen (born 3 November 1946), Emeritus at the Niels Bohr Institute[1] is a Danish astronomer[2] at the European Southern Observatory. He specialises in gamma-ray bursts,[3] meteorites[4] and minor planets.

Asteroids 9266 Holger and 3312 Pedersen are named after him.[5]

Amateur archaeology

In his earlier years, Pedersen was a keen amateur archaeologist on the Danish island of Funen. In this capacity, in 1985 as a gift to the Odense City Museums 125 year jubilee, he donated a sum of money for the creation of a legate for education of fellow amateur archaeologists.[6]

2015 Discovery of astronomical photographs

In 2015 Pedersen discovered a collection in the archives of the Bohr Institute of more than 150 photographic plates of astronomical observations, shot from 1895 to 1957. The glass plates were well preserved and clear shots of lunar eclipses, the stellar constellations and the passing of the 1957 Comet Arend–Roland. Pedersen called the find exciting, as per their being archaeoastronomy, showing how humans saw the sky a century ago. Especially interesting among the plates in the collection is a rare copy of a plate of a solar eclipse shot in 1919 by English astronomer Arthur Eddington.[7][8]

gollark: Also, it spreads through... breathing, as well as surfaces, so...
gollark: And apparently may have *some* effect in reducing how likely you are to get it.
gollark: Also, the "disaster is inevitable" thing seems... wrong. I think if stuff is handled correctly humanity can weather the problems we currently are and are going to experience and, er, do well. Problem is that there are lots of ways to do things very wrong.
gollark: *Probably* still better than before cities and stuff. Diseases spread anyway then, but less so, and we can actually treat them and have hygiene and sanitation now.
gollark: Still, I think on the whole we're better off disease-wise than the people of, say, 400 years ago.

References
  1. "International Astronomical Union". Retrieved 2016-06-09.
  2. "Accurate Spectrophotometry of Early-type Spectrum Variable Stars". adsabs.harvard.edu. Bibcode:1977Msngr..11...15P. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/eso_gamma_001018.html
  4. "CNN - Impact zone of giant meteorite confirmed - July 7, 1998". cnn.com. Retrieved 2016-05-15.
  5. Alan Chamberlin. "JPL Small-Body Database Browser". ssd.jpl.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2016-05-15.
  6. "Harja Arkæologisk Forening" [Harja Archaeological Union] (in Danish). Retrieved 2016-06-09.
  7. "Niels Bohr Instituttet Nyheder (in Danish) - December 8, 2015". Retrieved 2016-06-09.
  8. "Phys.org - December 9, 2015". Retrieved 2016-06-09.


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