Shin Hirayama

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Shin Hirayama
平山信
Tokyo Imperial University
Scientific career
FieldsAstronomy
Notable studentsDiscovering 498 Tokio and 727 Nipponia


Shin Hirayama (平山 信, Hirayama Shin, 1868–1945), also read as Makoto Hirayama, was the first Japanese astronomer to discover an asteroid. In 1900 he discovered 498 Tokio and 727 Nipponia.[1] The crater Hirayama on the Moon is jointly named after him and Kiyotsugu Hirayama.

Biography

Shin Hirayama in

Tokyo Imperial University in 1890. After graduating, he was sent by to England by the Japanese government to help further his studies into astronomy. He worked on astronomical spectroscopy at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich . Several months later, he went to Potsdam, Germany where he stayed for about three years. He also attended lectures in Berlin and Leipzig during his stay in the country. During this time, he also published a paper on various diffraction patterns.[1]

When he came back to Japan in 1895, he started work as a professor of astronomy at Tokyo Imperial University where he taught practical astronomy, stellar astronomy, orbit determination, and geodesy. He later became the director of the

In March of 1900, Shin Hirayama discovered the

Adam Massinger named the minor planet "Nipponia" — a Latin feminized form of the word "Nippon" — in his honor.[2]

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