Alfred Wegener: Difference between revisions
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He had to provide extensive notes to give astronomical calculators the means to use them. The calculators in question were not machines, but observatory staff whose job it was to perform actual calculations. It required several explanations. The tables for the Sun are used differently than the tables for the Moon. Meanwhile, there are separate sets of tables for each of the planets. Latitudes are calculated in a way quite different from the calculation of longitude and distance. These require separate tables and figures showing the geometry of the relationships.
== Lindenberg Observatory ==
Royal Prussian Aeronautical Observatory conducted research on aerology, the investigation of the three-dimensional structure of the atmosphere by sending up (to altitudes of several kilometers) meterological recording instruments via "captive balloons" and kites, tethered to the ground by steel cables. Aerologists also sent aloft to much greater altitudes "free balloons", designed to parachute back to earth with their instrument packages. Finally, the scientists went aloft themselves in manned balloons capable of carrying several investigators and a large and varied array of sensing and recording devices. The observatory studied several aspects of the atmosphere in the first few kilometers above the surface : atmospheric layering, winds, temperature, humidity, vertical atmospheric motions, cosmic radiation, polarization of light, atmospheric electricity, atmospheric particulates, cloud types, and photographic documentation of atmospheric phenomena of all kinds. The fundings available for this new scientific station were a result of direct royal patronage. Kaiser Wilhelm II aspired to be a patron of science and technology, on the pattern of his friend Prince Albert of Monaco, a long patron of oceanography, meteorology, and marine biology.
On 1 January 1905, Alfred and his brother Kurt, who had just taken his degree in meteorology at the Physical-Technical Institute in Charlottenburg, joined the scientific staff as a technical assistant of the Royal Prussian Aeronautical Observatory at Lindenberg. As the technical assistants, they were to work directly with the observer, Arthur Berson, and with the director of the station, Aßmann, in conducting flights of these experimental aircraft and experimental instruments.
They calibrated the tiny anemometers in the instrument packages sent aloft using a variable speed wind generator. They also regularly checked barometers and barograph in a vacuum chamber and recorded each instrument's standard errors. There were corrections for the corrections. Some measurement devices could not help heating up in still air and strong sunlight, so it had to be corrected yet again, before, during and after each flight.
Alfred's principal employment was to help send these carefully calibrated instruments aloft seven days a week (holidays included) at set hours. The schedule included a flight from 7 - 10 am, one from 2 - 6 pm, and one from 9 pm - midnight. At set times during the year "International Flight Weeks" meant the addition of a flight from 2 - 5 am. Once a month, usually the first Sunday, an instrument package went aloft for 24 hours continuous observations. In the sixteen months Alfred spent at Lindenberg, there were about 400 kite ascents and about 140 captive balloon ascents.
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