Georg Karl Friedrich Kunowsky

Template:Short description Template:More citations Template:Expand German Georg Karl Friedrich Kunowsky (3 March 1786 – 23 December 1846) was a German lawyer who was also a talented amateur astronomer.

Born the son of a clergyman in Beuthen, Silesia, Kunowsky studied law and became Template:Ill in Berlin.<ref name="baa-1938">Template:Cite journal</ref>

He made observations of Mars with an 11 cm achromatic refractor telescope made by Joseph von Fraunhofer, which was one of the first times that achromatic refractors were used to observe Mars; these were a notable improvement over the reflectors available to earlier observers.<ref name="Sheehan-1996">Template:Cite book</ref>

Like William Herschel before him, he came to the correct conclusion that the visible patches on Mars were surface features rather than clouds or other transient features. Observers like Johann Hieronymus Schröter had come to the opposite conclusion.<ref name="Sheehan-1996" />

Kunowsky made observations of the Moon, discovering a number of lunar rilles.<ref name="baa-1938" /> He was also one of a number of astronomers to independently discover the return of Comet Halley in 1835.

Kunowsky died in a railway accident on 23 December 1846 near Kohlfurt (modern day Węgliniec, Poland).<ref name="baa-1938" />

Kunowsky crater on the Moon and another crater on Mars were named in his honour.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>