Oswald Thomas (July 27, 1882 - Feb. 7, 1963)

Oswald Thomas was born in Kronstadt (now Brasov, Romania) on July 27, 1882. He was professional astronomer and Director of the Urania observatory in Vienna 1915-1922, set up the Vienna Astronomical Bureau in 1923 and the Planetarium in the Vienna Prater area in 1927. He died in Bonn, Germany on Feb. 7, 1963.

In his 1934 book, Astronomie, he identified the missing Messier object M47 with NGC 2422, an identification which is now generally recognized, after T.F. Morris of RASC found its reason in a data reduction error by Messier.

  • brief data on Oswald Thomas from Project AEIOU


    [SEDS] | [MAA] | [Home] | [History Home] | [Biographies]

    Hartmut Frommert (spider@seds.org)
    Christine Kronberg (smil@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)