Renowned Czech Astronomer Luboš Kohoutek Dies at 88

On Saturday, December 30, the renowned Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutek, discoverer of the famous Kohoutek’s comet, died in Bergedorf, Germany. He was 88 years old. The Czech Astronomical Society announced this on its website today. Kohoutek discovered 75 asteroids and five comets, one of which was named after him, bringing him world fame and inspiring artists. But Kohoutek was mainly concerned with planetary nebulae, their discovery, determination of their distances and physical parameters. He emigrated to Germany in 1970 after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops.

“It is a great loss of one of the most hardworking and painstaking Czech astronomers of the 20th century, who spent a record 290 shifts at the telescope of the European Southern Observatory at La Silla (in Chile),” wrote the Czech Astronomical Society. She stated that Kohoutek discovered asteroids and comets through persistence in observation and thorough study of wide-angle images.

He gave the planets purely Czech names: Hus, Komensky, Neruda, Capek, Smetana, Dvorak, Janacek, Martinuboh, Masaryk, Palach, Voskovec-Werich, but also Moravia. On the other hand, planet number 1850, discovered during the Second World War in Heidelberg, was given the name Kohoutek at the suggestion of German colleague Karel Reinmuth.

God is dead. Nothing is allowed. Tereza Matějčková’s book is published

Echo24, 6 November 2023

ESSAYS AND INTERVIEWS

The comet, later named Kohoutek 1973 E1, was discovered by Kohoutek nine months before it passed around the Sun, and astronomers therefore had the opportunity to prepare well for this event. It was also one of the brightest comets of the 20th century and the first comet studied from space by astronauts of the American space laboratory Skylab, thus marking a breakthrough in cometary research, according to the Astronomical Society. “In the second half of 1973 and throughout 1974, Luboš Kohoutek thus became an international media star, which had the remarkable consequence that the then Czechoslovak regime allowed him to visit Czechoslovakia again privately, albeit on the condition that he would not appear publicly,” the astronomical society stated .

The media reported on the comet as the “comet of the century”, it was observed in December 1973 and January 1974. It was immediately seized by artists. In 1973, the German group Kraftwerk released the single Kohoutek-Kometenmelodie, the song Komet Kohoutek sang in German in 1974 in the GDR, Václav Neckář, on the compilation album Box Nr. 8, the jazz group Weather Report released the album Mysterious Traveler in 1974, when this “mysterious traveler” was meant to be Rooster. The rock band REM included a song about this comet on their 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction.

When Harry became Sally. A book critical of modern transgender rights is published

Echo24, 2 January 2024

NEW BOOK EDITION ECHA

Astronomers appreciate the Catalog of Planetary Nebulae, which Kohoutek and his supervisor at the time, Luboš Perk, published in 1967 and which is still the most cited work by Czech astronomers. As the first astronomer from what was then Czechoslovakia, Kohoutek had the opportunity to consistently use the exceptional observation conditions at the La Silla observatory in the high mountain Atacama desert, and he used it for the second edition of the Catalog of Planetary Nebulae, which contains data on more than 1,500 objects of this type. Kohoutek published two volumes of the catalog under the auspices of the Hamburg Observatory in 2001, just after his formal retirement. The Hamburg Observatory later published a third volume of Kohoutek’s results.

Kohoutek was born on January 29, 1935 in Zábřeh in Moravia in the family of a high school teacher. He started studying astronomy as a high school student and at the age of less than 16 he became the youngest member of the Czechoslovak Astronomical Society at the time. He studied physics at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University in Brno and astronomy at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University in Prague. In Brno, he became a co-founder of the tradition of Czechoslovak expeditions to observe meteors and was responsible for the results of these observations being published in international scientific journals.

An alternative interpretation of 2023 as a time of positive change

Ondřej Šmigol, January 3, 2024

THE GERM OF A BETTER WORLD?

After graduation, Kohoutek joined the Astronomical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague. He established working contacts especially with the observatory in Hamburg, which in the 1960s had the best possibilities for taking pictures of planetary nebulae. In 1970, he did not return from a long-term internship in Hamburg and then obtained a permanent position as a researcher at the observatory there.

At the time of normalization, Kohoutek was a mediator between the free world and Czech astronomers, after the November revolution in 1995 the congress of the Czech Astronomical Society elected him an honorary member. In 2010, the Czech Astronomical Society awarded him its highest award, the Nušl Prize. Kohoutek was also a long-time member of the International Astronomical Union. In 2004, he received the Česká hlava award for the extraordinary scientific performance of a Czech citizen abroad.

“I was charmed by the design of the new central station. It will be beautiful, let’s open the sky”

Jiří Peňás, 6 January 2024 00:01

ARCHITECT DAVID VÁVRA

2024-01-05 16:05:00
#Acclaimed #astronomer #Luboš #Kohoutek #discoverer #famous #comet #died #Echo24.cz