SUMMARY
Lajos Terkán, astronomer, after whom the Public Observatory of his native
town is named, was born in Székesfehérvár on 26th April 1877. His father was
a craftsman who had got the secondary school-leaving certificate - this was
unusual at that ti-me. Lajos Terkán went to a primary school in
Székesfehérvár, to a secondary school in Székesfehérvár and in Győr.
Terkán learned Mathematics and Physics at Pázmány Péter University in
Budapest, where he attended the fascinating lectures of Radó Kövesligethy
with great interest, head of the Institute of Cosmography.
In 1900, after finishing the university, Terkán started to work for the
observatory of Miklós Konkoly-Thege in Ógyalla (today Hurbanovo in
Slovakia). This observatory was the main place of his scientific activity
which was broken by the first world war. He served as a soldier from 1914
until 1918, than he returned to Ógyalla.
However, after the war Ógyalla became territory of Czehoslovakia. The
director of the observatory, Antal Tass and Lajos Terkán saved and moved the
telescopes, instruments and the library to Budapest, where they founded a
new observatory on a hill named Svábhegy. It was opened in 1928 after four
years of construction works. Terkán worked in different areas of astronomy.
He made photometric observations and also dealt with the theoretical
questions connected to them. He observed variable stars using Zöllner-
astrophotometer. He published papers about the theory of refraction and
extinction and also about the determination of the temperature of stars from
photometric measurements.
Terkán lead also simultaneous meteor observations and dealt with some
problems of celestial mechanics as well. He was interested in observing the
Sun, its rotation and the direction of motion of the Solar System. In 1910
he observed Halley's Comet. He also delivered a popularizing lecture about
the comet in his native Székesfehérvár.
In 1912 he became privat-docent of Pázmány Péter University. Terkán
published 45 papers before the first world war and only 13 after the war,
because the foundation, instrumentation, installation of the new observatory
took the greatest part of his energy. However, he determined the
geographical latitude of the observatory, measured the pole fluctuation and
dealt with the research of asteroids. Terkán retired in 1936 and taught
mathematics in the college of Jesuits. He died of cancer in 1940, at the age
of 63.