A.O. Leuschner

Introduction

Armin Otto Leuschner was a prolific German-American astronomer and professor, famous for creating “Leuschner’s Short Method,” which is an algorithm that can determine an asteroid’s orbital trajectory after only three observations.

His Life and Legacy

Leuschner was born in Detroit, Michigan on January 16th, 1868. Following the death of his father as an infant, he and his mother moved to Germany, where he stayed during his school years. After graduating from the Königliches Wilhelms-Gymnasium in at age 18, Armin returned to the United States to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Astronomy at the University of Michigan. Following that, he pursued graduate work at the Lick Observatory in Mt. Hamilton, California while taking classes at the University of California, Berkeley. By 1890, he was appointed as an instructor of Mathematics at Berkeley and was soon promoted to Assistant Professor. There, he taught “practical astronomy” to civil engineers, ultimately designing upwards of 10 additional courses in the field.

Following his marriage in 1896, Leuschner would cross the pond again--this time to pursue his PhD at the University of Berlin, specializing in orbital theory. Reinvigorated by what his professors referred to as “one of the best [theses] they had seen,” Armin returned to California where he was promoted to Associate Professor of Astronomy and Geodesy at Berkeley. There, he began working intimately with their doctoral program. He worked as director of the Students’ Observatory from 1907 to his retirement in 1938, which became an intellectual space that was considered “a world center for the computation of orbits of newly discovered comets and minor planets.” 

Leuschner’s most famous scholarly work came from the study minor planets and asteroids. In 1900, the National Academy of Sciences invited Armin to direct the computation of the orbits of twenty-two asteroids that had been discovered by his undergraduate mentor at the University of Michigan. Through his own ingenuity, Leuschner was able to create a “short method,” that could rely on only three points of data to accurately calculate the asteroid’s orbital patterns, which is still used in these types of data calculations today.

Leuschner held many additional roles throughout his illustrious career. He served as Dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School, Chairman for the University Board of Research, Chairman of the the Committee on Comets and Minor Planets of the International Astronomical Union, Executive Secretary of the National Research Council, Head of University Naval Training Activities during World War II, President of the American Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and the Founder of the American Association of University Professors. In honor of his prolific contributions to the university, the Students’ Observatory at Berkeley was renamed the Leuschner Observatory in his honor. Armin Otto Leuschner passed away April 22, 1953 in Berkeley, California.

Resources

Alter, Dinsmore. “Armin Otto Leuschner.” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, vol. 65, no. 387, Dec. 1953, p. 269., adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1953PASP...65..269A.

Herget, Paul. “Armin Otto Leuschner, 1868-1953.” Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of the Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, 1978, pp. 129–147, www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/leuschner-armin-o.pdf.

Nicholson, Seth B. “The Award of the Bruce Gold Medal to Armin O. Leuschner.” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, vol. 48, no. 281, Feb. 1936, pp. 5–13., iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/124644/pdf.

Osterbrock, Donald E. “Leuschner, Armin Otto.” American National Biography, Oxford University Press, Feb. 2000, www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1302437.

Tenn, Joseph S. “Leuschner, Armin Otto.” Publications, Sonoma State University, 6 Apr. 2006, www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/pubs/LeuschnerAO-BEA.pdf.

University of California (System) Academic Senate. “Armin Otto Leuschner, Astronomy: Berkeley.” 1958, University of California: In Memoriam, The University of California, 2011, http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb6r29p0fn&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00021&toc.depth=1&toc.id=.