Erik Prosperin (1739-1803)


Lecturer in Mathematics and Physics at Uppsala University in 1767, professor of observational astronomy (Observator) 1773-1796 and professor of Astronomy 1797-1798.
Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences (KVA) in Stockholm in 1771 and member of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala in 1774 (secretary from 1786 and onwards).

A famous calculator of orbits: comets, planets and their satellites.
Calculated the orbits of the new (1781) planet Uranus and its satellites. He was also one of the first to calculate the orbit of the first asteroid, Ceres, in 1801.

Prosperin calculated orbits for a total of 84 comets, especially the comets of 1769, 1770, 1771, 1774, 1779 and 1795.

Biography: Biographiskt lexicon (1845)


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