caption death_date death_place birth_place image_size nationality field birth_date image article_title name
peder horrebow 15 april 1764 copenhagen løgstør , jutland 150px 20px denmark astronomy 14 may 1679 horrebow.jpg peder horrebow
 peder horrebow
peder horrebow

peder horrebow -lrb- horrebov -rrb- -lrb- 14 may 1679 -- 15 april 1764 -rrb- was a danish astronomer .
born in løgstør , jutland to a poor family of fishermen , horrebow entered the university of copenhagen in 1703 .
he worked his way through grammar school and university by virtue of his technical knowledge : he repaired mechanical and musical instruments and cut seals .
he received his ma from the university in 1716 , and his md in 1725 .
from 1703 to 1707 , he served as an assistant to ole rømer and lived in rømer 's home .
he worked as a household tutor from 1707 to 1711 to a danish baron , and entered the governmental bureaucracy as an excise writer in 1711 .
after repeatedly petitioning king frederick iv , horrebow became professor of mathematics at the university of copenhagen in 1714 .
he also became director of the university 's observatory -lrb- called the rundetårn , `` the round tower '' -rrb- .
his son christian succeeded him in this position .
horrebow and his wife , anne margrethe rossing , had a total of 20 children .
in 1728 , the great fire of copenhagen destroyed all of the papers and observations made by rømer , who had died in 1710 .
horrebow wrote the `` basis astronomiae '' -lrb- 1734 -- 35 -rrb- , which describes the scientific achievements made by rømer .
horrebow 's own papers and instruments were destroyed in the same fire .
horrebow was given a special grant from the government to repair the observatory and instruments .
horrebow received further support from a wealthy patron .
horrebow invented a way to determine a place 's latitude from the stars .
the method fixed latitude by observing differences of zenith distances of stars culminating within a short time of each other , and at nearly the same altitude , on opposite sides of the zenith .
the method was soon forgotten despite its value until it was rediscovered by the american andrew talcott in 1833 .
it is now called the `` horrebow-talcott method '' .
he wrote on navigation and determined the sun parallax , 9 '' , an approximative solution to the kepler equation .
horrebow also learned how to correct inherent flaws in instruments .
this preceded tobias mayer 's theory of correction of 1756 .
horrebow was a member of a number of scientific societies , including the académie des sciences -lrb- from 1746 -rrb- .
he also worked as a medical doctor and as an academic notary -lrb- from 1720 -rrb- .
he died in copenhagen .
the crater horrebow on the moon is named after him .
