Dunér, Nils Christofer

Nils Christofer Dunér, (born May 21, 1839, Billeberga, Sweden—died Nov. 10, 1914, Stockholm), Swedish astronomer who studied the rotational period of the Sun.

Dunér was senior astronomer (1864–88) at the Royal University Observatory in Lund, Sweden. In 1867 he began his investigations of binary stars. He also performed pioneering stellar spectroscopy studies (studies of the individual characteristic wavelengths of light).

Shortly after he became professor of astronomy at the University of Uppsala and director of the Uppsala Observatory in 1888, Dunér undertook a now-classic study of the Sun’s rotation. Using the Doppler shift, he established that the Sun’s rotational period is about 25 ¹/₂ days near the Equator but up to 38 ¹/₂ days near the Sun’s poles.