Bredikhin, Fyodor Aleksandrovich

Born Nikolaev, (Ukraine), 26 November/8 December 1831

Died Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1/14 May 1904

Comets, and especially the nature of their tails, were Fyodor Bredikhin's major preoccupation throughout his entire scientific career.

After graduation in 1855 from Moscow University, Bredikhin conducted his postgraduate study there, also working at the Moscow Observatory. In 1862 he defended his master's thesis, On the Tails of Comets, and in 1864 his doctoral dissertation, Perturbations of Comets that do not Depend on the Gravitational Attraction of Planets. The same year Bredikhin was appointed professor at Moscow University and in 1873 became director of the university's observatory. He then succeeded Otto Wilhelm Struve, the first director of the Pulkovo Observatory, in 1890. Bredikhin retired from his observatory post in 1895, for health reasons.

Bredikhin held memberships in the Russian Astronomical Society, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher