Sources and References
The following sources gave much of the information included in this work

Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie

Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Wissenschaften und der Künste (AEWK)
This multi volume work by J.S. Ersch and J.G. Gruber was available as a reprint of the original edition that was published between 1818 and 1889. The unfortunately uncomplete original was reprinted by the Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt in Graz, Austria, in 1969.

Astronomische Nachrichten (AN)
The Astronomische Nachrichten were first published in 1823 by H. C. Schumacher in Altona, then Professor of Astronomy in Copenhagen. Today Altona is a part of the city of Hamburg but was Danish then. The volumes, beginning with the very first one, have been made available for reference by the Library of the University of Hannover. They contain a lot of biographical information, although it was difficult to extract it from the thousands of pages. The Astronomische Nachrichten are referred to as AN in the text and in the footnotes.

A Dictionary of Astronomy (ODA)
This book of the Oxford University Press was edited by Ian Ridpath and contains a lot of biographical data. It was used as a cross-reference and ‘source’ for names. It is referred to as ODA in the footnotes.

Dictionary of Minor Planets (DMP)
This book by Lutz D. Schmadel is published by Springer-Verlag, Berlin. The second edition (1993) was used, a third, further enlarged edition was published in 1997. It lists the names of Minor Planets in order of their number and gives reference to the origin of the names. It is referred to as DMP in the footnotes.

Dictionary of Scientific Biography (DSB)
This multi-volume book edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie, Princeton University, was published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, and contains a lot of in-depth biographies of scientists of all fields. It’s great advantage is a list giving the entries by scientific field. This means that all persons related to Astronomy are very conveniently listed on three pages. This most valuable source is referred to as DSB in the footnotes. Two different editions were used, the 1970 edition and also a later version.

The Cambridge Atlas of Astronomy
The third edition of this marvellous book was used. It was edited by Jean Audouze and Guy Israël and published by the Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ISBN 0 521 43438 6

Großes vollständiges Universal-Lexikon aller Wissenschaften und Künste
The reprinted volumes 1 through 53 of this encyclopedy are currently available at the library of the University in Hildesheim. The original was published from 1732 on and was reprinted by the Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt in Graz, Austria, in 1993.

Illustr. Lexikon der Astronomie
This book of 254 pages, written by Adolph Drechsler, was printed in 1881 in Leipzig and contained some information on ancient and lesser known astronomers that were not found elsewhere. It was made available by Albert Schröder of Bad Salzdetfurth.

Moon Atlas (Rukl, A.)
The German version of Rukl's Moon Atlas was used. It was first published by Artia, Praha, in 1990 and is now available from Verlag Werner Dausien, Hanau. This work is a great quick reference to the origin of lunar feature names. Beside this, it is a wonderful Atlas of the Moon, each of the more than 75 maps covers an area of 300 by 400 km, at a scale of 25 km per cm or 40 miles per inch. This book is referred to as 'Rukl' in the footnotes.

Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch
The complete title of this multi-volume book is: J.C. Poggendorff’s biographisch-literarisches Handwörterbuch zur Geschichte der exacten Wissenschaften enthaltend Nachweisungen über Lebensverhältnisse und Leistungen von Mathematikern, Astronomen, Physikern, Chemikern, Mineralogen, Geologen, Geographen u.s.w. aller Völker und Zeiten. The length of the book’s title is an indicator for the contents of it. The footnotes will refer to this book as Pogg. The first edition was published in 1863 in Leipzig and printed by Johann Ambrosius Barth, a publisher who published also the astronomical yearbook edited by Paul Ahnert. The ‘Poggendorf’ is still under work.

Here is a list of the used volumes:

Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume I, A-L, 1863 Leipzig
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume II, M-Z, 1863 Leipzig
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume III, A-Z, 1898 by J.A. Barth, Leipzig
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume IV, A-Z, 1904 by J.A. Barth, Leipzig
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume V, part 1 A-K, 1925 by Verlag Chemie, Leipzig
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume V, part 2 L-Z, 1926 by Verlag Chemie, Leipzig
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VI, part 1 A-E, 1936 by Verlag Chemie, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VI, part 2 F-K, 1937 by Verlag Chemie, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VI, part 3 L-R, 1938 by Verlag Chemie, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VI, part 4 S-Z, 1939 by Verlag Chemie, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIa, part 1 A-E, 1956 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIa, part 2 F-K, 1958 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIa, part 3 L-R, 1959 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIa, part 4 S-Z(1), 1961 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIa, part 4S-Z(2), 1962 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIa, Supplement, 1971 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIb, part 1 A-B, 1967 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIb, part 2 C-E, 1968 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIb, part 3 F-Hem, 1970 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIb, part 4 Hen-K, 1973 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIb, part 5 L-M, 1976 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIb, part 6 N-Q, 1980 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIb, part 7 R-Sm, 1985 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIb, part 8 Sn-Vl, 1989 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIIb, part 9 Vo-Z, 1992 by Akademie Verlag, Berlin
Poggendorff’s Handwörterbuch, Volume VIII, part 1 A- 1998 by Wiley-VCH Verlag, Berlin

Neue Deutsche Biographie

Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon

Populäre Astronomie
The seventh edition of this work edited by Prof. Dr. H. Ludendorff was published in Leipzig in 1922 and contains some biographical notes in the appendix. Sometimes the sixth edition (1921) and the first english edition (1878) by Newcomb was used.

Sterne und Weltraum
Sterne und Weltraum is probably the most popular monthly magazine on Astronomy in Germany. It was founded in 1962 by Hans Elsässer, Rudolf Kühn and Karl Schaifers. In 1997 it merged with the magazine "Die Sterne", founded in 1921 by Robert Henseling.

The History of the Telescope
This book is a ‘must have’ for those who are interested in the history of astronomy and telescope making. The author Henry C. King describes on 456 pages the developement of the various types of telescopes and optic designs.

The Annual Obituary
The Annual Obituary edited by Deborah Andrews is published by the St James Press, Chicago and London. It is published every year since 1980, only the 1990 volumes were available for reference.