August Sonntag's birth date is
unknown. In 1848, he was a youthful aide at the observatory of
Altoona in the then Duchy of Holstein. From 1848 until about 1853
he continued working at that observatory, publishing in both the
Astronomische Nachrichten and the Astronomical Journal.
In late 1852 or early 1853, Sonntag emigrated to America. He
volunteered for the post of astronomer on the Arctic expedition
being organized by Dr.
Elisha Kent Kane of Philadelphia. The
expedition sailed from New York on May 31, 1853. The brig
Advance sailed northward along the coast of Greenland
looking for an open polar sea. On September 10th it was frozen in
for the winter in Rensselaer Harbor, about 150 miles north of the
present Thule air base.
Within days of arrival, a tiny observatory was set up near the
imprisoned ship. Sonntag had four chronometers, a theodolite, a
transit instrument, and equipment for measuring the earth's
magnetic field. This was Sonntag's headquarters for nearly two
years. Among other observations, he determined his longitude by
timing the culminations of the Moon. Several occultations of
Saturn and Mars by the Moon were timed in 1853-1854, as well as a
partial eclipse of the Sun.
August 1854 found the Advance still trapped in the ice
and after enduring a second winter of extreme hardship, the
expedition set out on a desperate escape journey by sled and open
boat to Upernavik, nearly 600 miles to the south. The expedition
reached Upernavik on August 6th and was picked up by two U.S. Navy
relief ships five weeks later. Later in 1856, Sonntag went to
Mexico with the scientific expedition of Baron Muller and climbed
17,887-foot Mount Popocatepetl.
In 1857, a
book was published about his Arctic adventures
entitled
Professor
Sonntag's thrilling narrative of the Grinnell exploring expedition
to the Arctic Ocean, in the years 1853, 1854, and 1855, in search
of Sir John Franklin, under the command of Dr. E.K.
Kane. This "literary imposture, its authorship
repudiated by Sonntag, and its authenticity rejected by other
members of the expedition ... this work is said ... to have been
prepared by Charles C. Rhodes from a brief ms. article on the
expedition purchased by Rhodes from Mrs. Sonntag, during Sonntag's
absence in Mexico."--Arctic Bibliography 14449. Day, Search for
the Northwest Passage, 43 82.
In 1859, Sonntag became Assistant Director at Dudley
Observatory under the acting directorship
Franz
Brunnow. In 1860, both astronomers left Dudley, Brunnow to
become professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan and
Sonntag to go on another
Arctic expedition, with Isaac Hayes in the schooner United
States.
Hayes' aim was to retrace Kane's track along the west coast of
Greenland in search of the mythical open polar sea. In the course
of this effort, in January, 1861, Sonntag and an Eskimo companion
were traveling over the ice near Cape York when the astronomer
fell into the water and died soon after of cold and exposure.
Adapted from Joseph Ashbrook, The Astronomical Scrapbook:
Skywatchers, Pioneers, and Seekers in Astronomy, Sky Publishing
Co, Cambridge, Mass. 1984.
