Dr Eberhard Wiehr passed away

On Monday 3 February 2025, Dr Eberhard Wiehr passed away at the age of 85 in Göttingen. He was a prominent figure in the history of IRSOL, and we owe much of its revival to him. Wiehr was not an unknown person; the question "Do you know Wiehr?" could only be answered with "Yes" or "No," as "Maybe" was essentially equivalent to "No." His vitality, along with his passion for life, nature, and science, deeply engaged everyone who knew him.

To introduce him, one can start with his scientific career: after studying physics, he graduated and received his doctorate from the Universtäts Sternwarte in Göttingen. His work was based on observations carried out at the newly built Locarno Observatory. He continued working at the Universitätssternwarte and later at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Göttingen. His observational knowledge was rare, and he often succeeded in measurements that seemed nearly impossible. He dealt with spectropolarimetric measurements (many polarisation signals from scattering were detected by him in the 1970s), sunspots and protuberances. He worked tirelessly in this field until the very end, and a publication is expected to be accepted shortly.

For IRSOL, his role was important. After the instrument had been partially dismantled in 1984, he discovered that a group of people wanted to refurbish it. He offered his assistance by providing advice, performing optics work, and offering scientific support. The instrumentation at IRSOL is highly complex, and without the expertise of a specialist to align the optics and provide essential guidance to the staff on a daily basis, reopening the Institute would not have been possible. We are enormously grateful to him. His observational skills made it possible to develop a scientific topic related to the study of protuberances by measuring extremely faint lines using a technique he perfected. As a result, we were able to produce a dozen publications on the subject.

There are also many memories of the discussions, the walks, the observing campaigns in Tenerife, the work done together with him. The last time he was in Locarno, a little over a year ago, we remember him saying how happy he was to have finally found an excellent tennis teacher. For his 80th birthday, a conference had been organised in Göttingen. One of the organisers asked me about him and whether I had heard from him recently. I replied that we had spoken on the phone during one of his seal-skin hikes in the Austrian Alps. His effervescent personality partly concealed a very generous character, ready for dialogue. 

To his daughters Ulrike and Katharina our deepest condolences. 

Michele Bianda
Former Director of IRSOL