BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Johannes Hevelius – Birth & Death Anniversary

On January 28, 1611 - 404 years ago today - Johannes Hevelius was born in what's now the Polish city of Gdansk. He also died there on his 76th birthday.

Hevelius was the last great astronomical observer to produce a substantial body of work using naked-eye observation. The telescope had been invented during his career, but he refused to use it for measuring star positions. He agreed to a challenge from English scientist Robert Hooke on his accuracy, and Edmund Halley tested him. According to Halley, Hevelius's accuracy with his instruments – and with a telescope – was equal to that of a telescope.

Among his many accomplishments was a star atlas which his wife Elisabetha (also an astronomer) completed and published after his death. You can find out more here about the life of Johannes Hevelius.

This statue of Hevelius shows him using a quadrant. A quadrant was an instrument like a sextant - still in use by navigators today - for measuring positions in the sky. The name on the base of the statue is the Polish version of the astronomer's name. But he is more widely known by the Latin version of his name. In those days Latin was the Esperanto of educated Europeans.

My favorite depiction of the ancient constellation of Argo Navis - Jason's ship as he sought the Golden Fleece - is that in the Uranographia of Hevelius. Johannes Hevelius was a 17th century Polish-German astronomer and celestial cartographer. Argo Navis is now one of the many Obsolete Constellations. It was so large and unwieldy that it was broken up into three smaller constellations. The original constellations had well over eight hundred naked-eye stars.