Gustav Müller

Who was Gustav Müller?

Karl Hermann Gustav Müller was a German astronomer.

He was born in Schweidnitz, Silesia to a merchant father; his father died when Gustav was six. In 1870 he entered the University of Leipzig, then transferred to the University of Berlin two years later. He was awarded a Ph.D. in 1877 with a thesis on the subject of micrometer screws. Thereupon he became an assistant at the Astrophysical Observatory of Potsdam. His primary career focus became the spectrum of the Sun and celestial photometry.

Between 1880–82, he assisted Hermann Carl Vogel in building a catalog of stellar spectra. In 1877 he began making photometric observations of the planets and their atmospheres. He led the German expedition to Hartford, Connecticut to observe the transit of Venus in 1882. In 1886 he began a collaboration with Paul Kempf to assemble the Potsdam Durchmusterung, which was a stellar catalogue of all stars in the northern hemisphere with a magnitude of 7.5 or brighter. In 1897 he published the manual Die Photometrie der Gestirne. Between 1900 and 1915, he and Hartwig produced a three volume catalogue of 1,687 variable stars.