He was born in
Biala, completed high school in
Teschen in 1867, and studied at the Universities of
Heidelberg and
Leipzig. He earned a doctorate in astronomy in 1872 from the latter, studying under
Carl Christian Bruhns. He was on the staff of the
University of Bonn Observatory until 1877, as an assistant to
Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander. In 1874, he directed the German expedition to the
Auckland Islands to observe the
transit of Venus. In 1881, he became the Director of the
Gotha Observatory, and in 1882 became a professor of Astronomy and Director of the Observatory at the
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich), which post he held until his death. His students included
Hans Kienle,
Ernst Anding,
Julius Bauschinger,
Paul ten Bruggencate,
Gustav Herglotz,
Richard Schorr, and especially
Karl Schwarzschild, who earned a doctorate under him in 1898, and acknowledged Seeliger's influence in speeches throughout his career. Seeliger was elected an Associate of the
Royal Astronomical Society in 1892, and President of the
Astronomische Gesellschaft from 1897 to 1921. He received numerous honours and medals, including knighthood (
Ritter), between 1896 and 1917. His contributions to astronomy include an explanation of the anomalous motion of the perihelion of Mercury (later one of the main
tests of general relativity), a theory of
nova coming from the collision of a star with a cloud of gas, and his confirmation of
James Clerk Maxwell's theories of the composition of the
rings of Saturn by studying variations in their albedo. He is also the discoverer of an apparent paradox in
Newton's gravitational law, known as
Seeliger's Paradox. However, his main interest was in the stellar statistics of the
Bonner Durchmusterung and Bonn section of the Astronomische Gesellschaft star catalogues, and in the conclusions these led about the structure of the universe. Seeliger's views on the dimensions of our galaxy were consistent with
Jacobus Kapteyn's later studies. Seeliger was an opponent of Albert Einstein's
theory of relativity. He continued his work until his death, on 2 December 1924, aged 75. The
asteroid 892 Seeligeria and the
lunar crater Seeliger were named in his honour. The brightening of
Saturn's rings at
opposition is known as the
Seeliger Effect, to acknowledge his pioneering research in this field. Minor planet
251 Sophia is named after his wife, Sophia. ==Students==