Jens Fredrik Schroeter

Who was Jens Fredrik Schroeter?

Jens Fredrik Wilhelm Schroeter was a Norwegian astronomer.

He was born in Drammen as a son of sea captain Fredrik Julius Bech Schroeter and his wife Julie Schroeter. His paternal family had migrated into Norway from Langeland, Denmark in 1787. Through his sister Jenny, he was a brother-in-law of priest Jens Jonas Jansen and an uncle of historian, genealogist and archivist Einar Jansen. Schroeter himself did not marry.

He finished his secondary education in 1872, and graduated with the cand.real. degree in 1882. His interest for astronomy stemmed from childhood, when his father had taught him the Zodiac, the planets and how to use the sextant. He worked at the observatory in Bossekop from 1882 to 1884, and as an assistant at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute from 1884 to 1888. From 1888 to 1890 he held a fellowship and was an observator abroad, but in 1891 he returned to Norway as an observator at the University of Kristiania in 1891. The director of the observatory since 1890 was professor Hans Geelmuyden, and when Geelmuyden retired as a professor in 1919, he was replaced by Schroeter. Schroeter also edited the official Norwegian almanac, succeeding Geelmuyden here as well.