Life
He was born at Altona, Duchy of Holstein (then a part of the Denmark–Norway kingdoms), the son of Jacob Struve (1755–1841). Struve's father moved the family away from the French occupation to Dorpat in Imperial Russia to avoid military service, equipped with Danish passports.
In 1808 he entered the Imperial University of Dorpat, where he first studied philology, but soon turned his attention to astronomy. From 1813 to 1820, he taught at the university and collected data at the Dorpat Observatory, and in 1820 became a full professor and director of the observatory. He's teaching has had strong effect that is still felt in at the university.
Struve was occupied with research on double stars and geodesy in Dorpat until 1839, when he founded and became director of the new Pulkovo Observatory near St Petersburg. Among other honors, he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1826. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March, 1827 and was awarded their Royal Medal the same year and was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1833. In 1843 Wilhelm formally adopted Russian nationality. He retired in 1862 due to failing health.
The asteroid 768 Struveana was named jointly in his honour and that of Otto Wilhelm and Karl Hermann Struve and a lunar crater was named for another 3 astronomers of the Struve family: Friedrich Georg Wilhelm, Otto Wilhelm and Otto.
Read more about this topic: Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Von Struve
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