Editing Carl Friedrich Gauss (section)

=== Private scholar ===
Gauss graduated as a [[Doctor of Philosophy]] in 1799, not in Göttingen, as is sometimes stated,{{efn|This error occurs for example in Marsden (1977).<ref name="Marsden">{{Cite journal| last = Marsden | first = Brian G. | author-link = Brian G. Marsden | date=1 August 1977 | title = Carl Friedrich Gauss, Astronomer | url = http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1977JRASC..71..309M | journal = [[Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada]] | volume = 71 | pages = 309–323 | bibcode=1977JRASC..71..309M | issn = 0035-872X}}</ref>}}<ref name="Marsden" /> but at the Duke of Brunswick's special request from the University of Helmstedt, the only state university of the duchy. [[Johann Friedrich Pfaff]] assessed his doctoral thesis, and Gauss got the degree ''[[Graduation|in absentia]]'' without further oral examination.<ref name="Ullrich" /> The Duke then granted him the cost of living as a private scholar in Brunswick. Gauss subsequently refused calls from the [[Russian Academy of Sciences]] in [[St. Peterburg]] and [[Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich|Landshut University]].<ref name="Reich2000" /><ref name="Beuermann">{{cite book | last = Beuermann | first = Klaus | editor-last = Beuermann | editor-first = Klaus | title = Grundsätze über die Anlage neuer Sternwarten unter Beziehung auf die Sternwarte der Universität Göttingen von Georg Heinrich Borheck | publisher = Universitätsverlag Göttingen | year = 2005 | place = Göttingen | pages = 37–45 | chapter = Carl Friedrich Gauß und die Göttinger Sternwarte | isbn = 3-938616-02-4 | chapter-url = https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/32489/610361.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y}}</ref> Later, the Duke promised him the foundation of an observatory in Brunswick in 1804. Architect [[Peter Joseph Krahe]] made preliminary designs, but one of [[War of the Fourth Coalition|Napoleon's wars]] cancelled those plans:<ref>{{Cite journal | last = Michling | first = Horst | title = Zum Projekt einer Gauß-Sternwarte in Braunschweig | journal = Mitteilungen der Gauß-Gesellschaft Göttingen | issue = 3 | page = 24 | year = 1966 | language = de}}</ref> the Duke was killed in the [[Battle of Jena–Auerstedt|battle of Jena]] in 1806. The duchy was abolished in the following year, and Gauss's financial support stopped.

When Gauss was calculating asteroid orbits in the first years of the century, he established contact with the astronomical communities of [[Bremen]] and [[Lilienthal, Lower Saxony|Lilienthal]], especially [[Wilhelm Olbers]], [[Karl Ludwig Harding]], and [[Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel]], forming part of the informal group of astronomers known as the [[Celestial police]].{{sfn|Dunnington|2004|pp=50, 54–55, 74–77}} One of their aims was the discovery of further planets. They assembled data on asteroids and comets as a basis for Gauss's research on their orbits, which he later published in his astronomical magnum opus ''[[Theoria motus corporum coelestium]]'' (1809).{{sfn|Dunnington|2004|pp=91–92}}