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Albertus (Albert) Antonie Nijland (30 October 1868 – 18 August 1936) was a Dutch astronomer. He was professor of astronomy at the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, and served as director of the Sterrewacht Sonnenborgh (now the Sterrekundig Instituut) of the university.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/Albertus_Antonie_Nijland_-_Onze_Hoogleeraren_%281898%29.jpg/220px-Albertus_Antonie_Nijland_-_Onze_Hoogleeraren_%281898%29.jpg)
Nijland was born in Utrecht. In 1901 he participated in a Dutch solar eclipse expedition to Karang Sago, Sumatra.
He was noted for his observations of variable stars, and published a number of papers on the subject in Astronomische Nachrichten, and elsewhere, from 1917 until 1936. He proposed naming variable stars in each constellation using a simple numbering system beginning with V1, V2, ... and so forth. However the double-letter system starting with RR was already in widespread use. As a result, variable stars after QZ were numbered according to Nijland's system beginning with V335.
In 1923 Nijland became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[1]
References
edit- ^ "A.A. Nijland (1868 - 1936)". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 30 July 2015.