Dr. Dr. Susanne M Hoffmann

… is an astronomer (and historian of astronomy) from Berlin, Europe.

• scientific staff at universities (preferred) & freelancing independent scholar in planetariums and museums
• Academic Background:
  • history of science (specilized in astronomy)
  • physics (specialized in astronomy)
  • education (teacher education, public education, science journalism)

Activities / positions of honour

• engaged in the International Astronomical Union,
  • Working Group Star Names
  • Office for Astronomical Outreach
• data curator for constellations in the Stellarium team
• member of board: Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage (based in China)
• freelance astronomer in Planetarium Jena (Germany)
• collaborator of State Museum for Prehistory Halle (Germany)

Research in astronomy

Methods:

• data-driven history of exact science
• applied historical astronomy
• computational history
• data management / data curation

Main Topic: celestial globes and maps

•  consisting of
  • astrometry/ cartography
    • technology
    • mathematics of measurements
  • astrometrical frames of reference, e.g.
    • coordinate systems and their historical development
    • constellations (as frame of reference, as cultural calendar)
  • stars
    • their cultural history/ names,
    • their physics/ variabilities/ (exo)planets/
    • novae, supernovae and all types of eruptions
• modelling: planetarium (software) and data management

Further Research Topics

• gravity
  • Newton
  • Einstein’s general relativity
  • microlensing
• optics
  • telescopes and their historical development
  • planetariums and their historical development
  • basical concepts (history of optics: from antiquity to the present)
• time

Public Talk on Constellations (2018, Sonneberg Observatory):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyqdMHXJ4uE

Former research:

• visualizations in education/ didactics
• special and general relativity (teaching)
• excursions in science teaching
• gravitational microlensing