Joseph Johann von Littrow


Joseph Johann von Littrow was an Austrian astronomer. In 1837, he was ennobled with the title Joseph Johann Edler von Littrow. He was the father of Karl Ludwig Edler von Littrow and the mentor of the mathematician Nikolai Brashman. His work took him to Russia for a time, which is where his son who succeeded him was born.
He became director of the Vienna Observatory in 1819. He served in this position until his death in 1840. He created the only conformal retroazimuthal map projection, which is known as the Littrow projection.
Von Littrow is known for inventions in optics, including the Littrow prism, as well as the Littrow mount or Littrow configuration, which is a common way of orienting a blazed diffraction grating in a spectrometer or monochromator for high-throughput performance.
Von Littrow is often associated with a proposal to dig a large circular canal in the Sahara desert and fill it with burning kerosene, thus communicating the fact of human intelligence to aliens who may be observing earth. However, Von Littrow's connection with this scheme may be apocryphal.
The crater Littrow on the Moon is named in his honor.
He is the great-great-great-grandfather of Roman Catholic Cardinal Christoph Schönborn.

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