#germay

13th December 1805 saw the birth at Corriemulzie near Braemar of Johann von Lamont, who would become an eminent German astronomer.

Born as John Lamont, the second of three sons of Robert Lamont, forester, and his second wife Elspeth Swan, after his father's death in 1817, being a Catholic, he was sent to be educated at the Benedictine monastery of St James, Ratisbon (now Regensburg in Bavaria), it wasn't unusual for some to be sent abroad to be educated.

Here he was tutored in mathematics and science by the prior, Father Benedikt Deasson, and spent his vacations as an assistant at the observatory at Bogenhausen, now a suburb of Munich. Later he became an official staff member, took his doctorate of philosophy at Munich University in 1830 and was eventually to succeed as Observatory Director when Johann Georg von Soldner died. He was elected a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1836 and Professor at Munich University in 1852.

After making many discoveries in his career he received many honours including the Order of the Crown of Bavaria, a title of nobility from the King, so that his name became "von Lamont", he was a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. A crater on the Moon and a crater on Mars are named after him. He never married and led a solitary life, dying at the observatory on 6th August 1879 after 51 years of work there. Von Lamont bequeathed a fortune to be used for scholarships in astronomy and mathematical physics.

A basket-hilted Katzbalger,

OaL: 37.8 in/96 cm

Blade Length: 32 in/81.3 cm

Weight: 3.3 lbs/1.5 kg