Bernardus Wilhelmus Maria "Bert" van Sprang (20 June 1944 in

Tilburg Tilburg () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, in the southern province of North Brabant. With a population of 222,601 (1 July 2021), it is the second-largest city or municipality in North Brabant after Eindhoven and the seventh-larg ...

– 17 November 2015 in

Pijnacker Pijnacker () is a town in the Dutch province of South Holland. It is bordered Zoetermeer to the north, by Nootdorp to the northwest, by Delfgauw to the southwest, by Rotterdam (specifically Overschie) to the south and by Berkel en Rodenrijs to th ...

)Obituary
at the JWG website was the founder of the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

youth division ("JWG", or ''Jongerenwerkgroep'') of the Dutch association of

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

and

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

("NVWS", or ''Nederlandse Vereniging voor Weer- en Sterrenkunde'') in 1967. Activities carried out by Van Sprang for the JWG included the organization of astro camps, the setting up of a program to build telescopes cheaply, and the writing of many booklets on astronomy topics. He was also program leader of the planetarium in The Hague until it was destroyed by fire in February 1976. The

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

3098 van Sprang was named after him.

Bibliography

*Govert Schilling & Bert van Sprang, ''De levensloop van de zon'', Stichting De Koepel, 1979 *Bert van Sprang, ''Wegwijs in het zonnestelsel'', Stichting Universum, 1988, *Govert Schilling & Bert van Sprang, ''Wegwijs in het Universum. Een handleiding opzoekboek voor JWG-leden. Brochure nr. 56'', Jongerenwerkgroep N.V.W.S., 1980

References

1944 births 2015 deaths 20th-century Dutch astronomers People from Tilburg 21st-century Dutch astronomers {{netherlands-bio-stub