APIAN, PETER (1495-1552), professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, was an
exemplification of the Renaissance humanist. He is famous for his discovery that the tails of comets are directed away from the
sun.
BAYER, JOHANNES (1564-1617) Astronomer who first named stars by assigning them to constellations and giving them Greek
letters in magnitude classes. Bayer published Uranometria (a detailed star chart/catalog) in 1603.
BEHAIM, MARTIN (1459-1507) Navigator and geographer whose Nürnberg Terrestrial Globe is the earliest globe extant.
BESSEL, FRIEDRICH (1784-1846) Astronomer and mathematician who cataloged about 50,000 stars, mathematically predicted
the existence of a planet beyond Uranus, was the first person to see the "motion" of a star due to parallax (observing 61 Cygni),
was the first person to calculate the distance to a star (observing 61 Cygni - 10.3 light-years from Earth), realized that there
were dark stars, and devised the famous Bessel function, a mathematical function.
COPERNICUS, NICOLAUS (1473-1543) Ethnic German astronomer from Poland who developed the revolutionary Copernican
system, a model of the solar system in which all the planets orbit the sun. His ideas overturned the old Ptolemaic System. His
seminal work was De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium ("On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orb"), published in 1543.
DOPPELMAYR, JOHANN (1671-1750) was a geographer, mathematician who wrote extensively on astronomy, spherical
trigonometry,geography, cartography, trigonometry, sundials and mathematical instruments. He was also involved in the
production of globes.
DÜRER ALBRECHT (1471-1528) Artist. Presented classical drawings with a detailed method for the construction of sundials
using compass and straightedge.
EINMART,GEORG CHRISTOPH (1638 - 1705) Engraver and astronomer who built a private observatory where he worked
with his daughter Maria Clara. Eimmart published, beside other works, a lunar map and ‘Observationes circumjov.’ A crater on
the moon is named Eimmart in his honor.
EINMART,MARIA CLARA (1676 - 1707) Daughter of G. C. Eimmart. An observer and calculating astronomer who made 300
detailled drawings of the Moon and of the annular eclipse of May 12,1706.She was wife of Johann Heinrich Mueller.
ENCKE, JOHANN. Discoverer of the Encke Division in 1837 which splits the A Ring, the outermost of the major rings of
Saturn.
FRAUNHOFER, JOSEPH (1787-1826) Physicist who first studied the Sun's spectra (the dark lines are now called Fraunhofer
lines). His work with the spectra and also with diffraction gratings was seminal in the science of spectroscopy.
GALLE, GOTTFRIED (1812-1910) Astronomer who discovered the crepe ring of Saturn and was a co-discoverer of Neptune
in 1846.
GUTENBERG, BENO (1889 - 1960) Geophysicist who accurately determined the size of the core of the Earth. Gutenberg
discovered that the Earth has a low-velocity zone in the upper mantle; this zone is now called the Gutenberg discontinuity.
HARSDöRFFER, GEORG PHILIPP (1607-1658) was a prominent example of a Baroque poet and also a scientist who designed
a delayed firing mechanism based on the sun, a 'noon canon' set off by a burning glass at 12 o'clock. Athanasius Kircher
designed a sundial which struck the hours. The sun's rays are focused by a glass sphere and ignite gunpowder, which triggers
hammers on bells at various hours.
HARTMANN, JOHANNES F. (1865-1936) Astrophysicist who, in 1904, discovered clouds of interstellar calcium gas and
developed a theory about novas, studied the asteroid #433 (Eros) and developed a method of testing telescope lenses, which is
still named for him.
HELMHOLTZ, HERMANN VON (1821-1894) Astrophysicist who studied solar energy production and star formation.
HEVELIUS, JOHANNES (1611-1687) Astronomer who published the first moon map. He also published a celestial atlas
introducing many constellations.
HOMANN, JOHANN. Former Dominican monk and celebrated cartographer of 18th century Nürnburg. He produced maps and
celestial charts (generally in atlases), and globes of high quality both in their geographic accuracy and aesthetic appeal
KEPLER, JOHANNES (1571-1630) Mathematician who realized that the planets go around the sun in elliptical orbits. He
formulated what we now call "Kepler's Three Laws" of planetary motion that mathematically describe the elliptical orbits of
celestial objects. See elsewhere
KIRCHOFF, GUSTAV (1824-1887) Physicist who discovered that each element gave off a characteristic color of light when
heated to incandescence. When separated by a prism, the light for each element had a specific pattern of wavelengths. Kirchoff,
together with Bunsen, used his techniques to discover two new elements, cesium (1860) and rubidium (1861). Kirchoff found
that when light shines through a gas, the gas absorbs some of the light, the same wavelengths of light that it would emit when
heated, and he applied his techniques to the Sun.
LIPPERSHEY, HANS (1570?-1619) German-born Dutch lens maker who demonstrated the first refracting telescope in 1608,
made from two lenses; he applied for a patent for this optical refracting telescope (using 2 lenses) in 1608, intending it for use as
a military device.
MARIUS (Mayr) , SIMON (1570-1624) Astronomer and physician who studied with Kepler and attended Galileo's lectures. He
claimed to have discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter in 1610, the same year that Galileo discovered them. He published
the first German translation of the first six books of Euclid's Elements. Marius independently rediscovered the "Nebula in the
Girdle of Andromeda" on December 15, 1612, and was the first to observe it with a telescope and the first to mention the new
star Andromeda nebula in print. In Mundus jovialis, Marius was the first to publish tables of the motions of the satellites of
Jupiter and more accurately than Galileo. He bestowed the names that are still used for the satellites.
TOBIAS MAYER (1723--1762) Cartographer and astronomer whose theories of the moon's motion resulted in three published
versions of lunar tables.
MÜLLER, JOHANN (REGIOMONTANUS) see elsewhere
OLBERS, HEINRICH (1758-1840) Astronomer and physician who published Olbers' paradox (Why is the sky dark at night? or
Why doesn't starlight make the night sky bright?) (1823), determined that Uranus is a planet, not a comet (1781), discovered
Olbers's comet (1815), the asteroids #2 Pallas (1802) and #4 Vesta (1807), and formulated a method for calculating comet orbits.
PEURACH (PEURBACH),GEORG (1423 - 1461) Austrian astronomer who published observations as well as a textbook on
trigonometric calculation. He also discovered the deviation of the compass.
RATDOLT, ERHARD (1442–1528) printed many scientific works. He printed the Kalendarium of Regiomontanus in 1476. The
Sphaera mundi which Ratdolt printed in 1482 serves as an excellent example of the artistry of his printing. Ratdolt was the first
printer to use colored astronomical diagrams.
RHODIUS (1577-1633) Mathematician who served Tycho Brahe and was close friend of Kepler.
SCHÖENER, ANDREAS (1528-1590), the son of Johann Schöner who made the first celestial globe of Early Modern times,
was court mathematician to Landgraf Wilhelm IV (1534-1594) of Hesse, praised by Tycho Brahe as the most important
astronomer in Europe of that time. He published two books on sundials
SCHRÖTER, JOHANN HEIRONYMUS (1745-1816) Amateur. A crater on the moon is named for him.
SCHWABE, HEINRICH. Amateur astronomer discovered that sunspots appeared in an 11-year cycle. Schwabe was a
pharmacist who observed the sun daily and published his observations, "Solar Observations" in 1843.
VON WURZELBAUER, JOHANN PHILIPP (1651-1725) Amateur. He published observations about the great comet of 1680.
After 1682, Wurzelbauer owned his own astronomical observatory and instruments, and observed the transit of Mercury, solar
eclipses, and worked out the geographical latitude of his native city, Nürnberg. After 1683, he had withdrawn himself completely
from business life to dedicate himself to astronomy. Wurzelbauer crater, on the Moon, was named after him.
WERNER, JOHANNES (1468-1522) was a pastor and mathematician in his native Nürnberg. He improved the cross staff. In
1502, Werner, in collaboration with Johannes Stabius from Austria, constructed the large sundial at the eastern choir of the
Lorenz church in Nürnberg.
exemplification of the Renaissance humanist. He is famous for his discovery that the tails of comets are directed away from the
sun.
BAYER, JOHANNES (1564-1617) Astronomer who first named stars by assigning them to constellations and giving them Greek
letters in magnitude classes. Bayer published Uranometria (a detailed star chart/catalog) in 1603.
BEHAIM, MARTIN (1459-1507) Navigator and geographer whose Nürnberg Terrestrial Globe is the earliest globe extant.
BESSEL, FRIEDRICH (1784-1846) Astronomer and mathematician who cataloged about 50,000 stars, mathematically predicted
the existence of a planet beyond Uranus, was the first person to see the "motion" of a star due to parallax (observing 61 Cygni),
was the first person to calculate the distance to a star (observing 61 Cygni - 10.3 light-years from Earth), realized that there
were dark stars, and devised the famous Bessel function, a mathematical function.
COPERNICUS, NICOLAUS (1473-1543) Ethnic German astronomer from Poland who developed the revolutionary Copernican
system, a model of the solar system in which all the planets orbit the sun. His ideas overturned the old Ptolemaic System. His
seminal work was De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium ("On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orb"), published in 1543.
DOPPELMAYR, JOHANN (1671-1750) was a geographer, mathematician who wrote extensively on astronomy, spherical
trigonometry,geography, cartography, trigonometry, sundials and mathematical instruments. He was also involved in the
production of globes.
DÜRER ALBRECHT (1471-1528) Artist. Presented classical drawings with a detailed method for the construction of sundials
using compass and straightedge.
EINMART,GEORG CHRISTOPH (1638 - 1705) Engraver and astronomer who built a private observatory where he worked
with his daughter Maria Clara. Eimmart published, beside other works, a lunar map and ‘Observationes circumjov.’ A crater on
the moon is named Eimmart in his honor.
EINMART,MARIA CLARA (1676 - 1707) Daughter of G. C. Eimmart. An observer and calculating astronomer who made 300
detailled drawings of the Moon and of the annular eclipse of May 12,1706.She was wife of Johann Heinrich Mueller.
ENCKE, JOHANN. Discoverer of the Encke Division in 1837 which splits the A Ring, the outermost of the major rings of
Saturn.
FRAUNHOFER, JOSEPH (1787-1826) Physicist who first studied the Sun's spectra (the dark lines are now called Fraunhofer
lines). His work with the spectra and also with diffraction gratings was seminal in the science of spectroscopy.
GALLE, GOTTFRIED (1812-1910) Astronomer who discovered the crepe ring of Saturn and was a co-discoverer of Neptune
in 1846.
GUTENBERG, BENO (1889 - 1960) Geophysicist who accurately determined the size of the core of the Earth. Gutenberg
discovered that the Earth has a low-velocity zone in the upper mantle; this zone is now called the Gutenberg discontinuity.
HARSDöRFFER, GEORG PHILIPP (1607-1658) was a prominent example of a Baroque poet and also a scientist who designed
a delayed firing mechanism based on the sun, a 'noon canon' set off by a burning glass at 12 o'clock. Athanasius Kircher
designed a sundial which struck the hours. The sun's rays are focused by a glass sphere and ignite gunpowder, which triggers
hammers on bells at various hours.
HARTMANN, JOHANNES F. (1865-1936) Astrophysicist who, in 1904, discovered clouds of interstellar calcium gas and
developed a theory about novas, studied the asteroid #433 (Eros) and developed a method of testing telescope lenses, which is
still named for him.
HELMHOLTZ, HERMANN VON (1821-1894) Astrophysicist who studied solar energy production and star formation.
HEVELIUS, JOHANNES (1611-1687) Astronomer who published the first moon map. He also published a celestial atlas
introducing many constellations.
HOMANN, JOHANN. Former Dominican monk and celebrated cartographer of 18th century Nürnburg. He produced maps and
celestial charts (generally in atlases), and globes of high quality both in their geographic accuracy and aesthetic appeal
KEPLER, JOHANNES (1571-1630) Mathematician who realized that the planets go around the sun in elliptical orbits. He
formulated what we now call "Kepler's Three Laws" of planetary motion that mathematically describe the elliptical orbits of
celestial objects. See elsewhere
KIRCHOFF, GUSTAV (1824-1887) Physicist who discovered that each element gave off a characteristic color of light when
heated to incandescence. When separated by a prism, the light for each element had a specific pattern of wavelengths. Kirchoff,
together with Bunsen, used his techniques to discover two new elements, cesium (1860) and rubidium (1861). Kirchoff found
that when light shines through a gas, the gas absorbs some of the light, the same wavelengths of light that it would emit when
heated, and he applied his techniques to the Sun.
LIPPERSHEY, HANS (1570?-1619) German-born Dutch lens maker who demonstrated the first refracting telescope in 1608,
made from two lenses; he applied for a patent for this optical refracting telescope (using 2 lenses) in 1608, intending it for use as
a military device.
MARIUS (Mayr) , SIMON (1570-1624) Astronomer and physician who studied with Kepler and attended Galileo's lectures. He
claimed to have discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter in 1610, the same year that Galileo discovered them. He published
the first German translation of the first six books of Euclid's Elements. Marius independently rediscovered the "Nebula in the
Girdle of Andromeda" on December 15, 1612, and was the first to observe it with a telescope and the first to mention the new
star Andromeda nebula in print. In Mundus jovialis, Marius was the first to publish tables of the motions of the satellites of
Jupiter and more accurately than Galileo. He bestowed the names that are still used for the satellites.
TOBIAS MAYER (1723--1762) Cartographer and astronomer whose theories of the moon's motion resulted in three published
versions of lunar tables.
MÜLLER, JOHANN (REGIOMONTANUS) see elsewhere
OLBERS, HEINRICH (1758-1840) Astronomer and physician who published Olbers' paradox (Why is the sky dark at night? or
Why doesn't starlight make the night sky bright?) (1823), determined that Uranus is a planet, not a comet (1781), discovered
Olbers's comet (1815), the asteroids #2 Pallas (1802) and #4 Vesta (1807), and formulated a method for calculating comet orbits.
PEURACH (PEURBACH),GEORG (1423 - 1461) Austrian astronomer who published observations as well as a textbook on
trigonometric calculation. He also discovered the deviation of the compass.
RATDOLT, ERHARD (1442–1528) printed many scientific works. He printed the Kalendarium of Regiomontanus in 1476. The
Sphaera mundi which Ratdolt printed in 1482 serves as an excellent example of the artistry of his printing. Ratdolt was the first
printer to use colored astronomical diagrams.
RHODIUS (1577-1633) Mathematician who served Tycho Brahe and was close friend of Kepler.
SCHÖENER, ANDREAS (1528-1590), the son of Johann Schöner who made the first celestial globe of Early Modern times,
was court mathematician to Landgraf Wilhelm IV (1534-1594) of Hesse, praised by Tycho Brahe as the most important
astronomer in Europe of that time. He published two books on sundials
SCHRÖTER, JOHANN HEIRONYMUS (1745-1816) Amateur. A crater on the moon is named for him.
SCHWABE, HEINRICH. Amateur astronomer discovered that sunspots appeared in an 11-year cycle. Schwabe was a
pharmacist who observed the sun daily and published his observations, "Solar Observations" in 1843.
VON WURZELBAUER, JOHANN PHILIPP (1651-1725) Amateur. He published observations about the great comet of 1680.
After 1682, Wurzelbauer owned his own astronomical observatory and instruments, and observed the transit of Mercury, solar
eclipses, and worked out the geographical latitude of his native city, Nürnberg. After 1683, he had withdrawn himself completely
from business life to dedicate himself to astronomy. Wurzelbauer crater, on the Moon, was named after him.
WERNER, JOHANNES (1468-1522) was a pastor and mathematician in his native Nürnberg. He improved the cross staff. In
1502, Werner, in collaboration with Johannes Stabius from Austria, constructed the large sundial at the eastern choir of the
Lorenz church in Nürnberg.
| Some Noted German Astronomers |
A mysterious wooden circle of posts at Goseck in the district of Weissenfels, Saxony-Anhalt on a
6,000- square-metre site was discovered in 1991 by an archaeologist studying the landscape from the
air. Goseck was already the site of Stone Age and Bronze Age discoveries when an excavation found
what appeared to be a temple of the sun consisting of a set of concentric ditches 246 feet across and
two palisade rings containing gates at defined places and post holes. It is estimated by designs on
potsherds found at the site to be almost 7,000 years old, older than the pyramids of Egypt and
preceding Stonehenge by at least two millennia. It was apparently also the site of a sacred building
and archaeologists have found the arrangement of human bones with cut marks on them indicating
human sacrifice and the remains of ritual fires. The Goseck Circle is comprised of four concentric
rings of earth and wood and has three gates leading into the walled circular compounds.
6,000- square-metre site was discovered in 1991 by an archaeologist studying the landscape from the
air. Goseck was already the site of Stone Age and Bronze Age discoveries when an excavation found
what appeared to be a temple of the sun consisting of a set of concentric ditches 246 feet across and
two palisade rings containing gates at defined places and post holes. It is estimated by designs on
potsherds found at the site to be almost 7,000 years old, older than the pyramids of Egypt and
preceding Stonehenge by at least two millennia. It was apparently also the site of a sacred building
and archaeologists have found the arrangement of human bones with cut marks on them indicating
human sacrifice and the remains of ritual fires. The Goseck Circle is comprised of four concentric
rings of earth and wood and has three gates leading into the walled circular compounds.
As one progresses to the center, the rings and the gates into
the inner circles become narrower indicating that probably
only a select few would enter the inner-most ring. There are
three sets of gates facing southeast, southwest and north, and
when archaeologist combined the evidence with GPS, they
noticed that the two southern openings marked the beginning
of the summer and winter solstices.
the inner circles become narrower indicating that probably
only a select few would enter the inner-most ring. There are
three sets of gates facing southeast, southwest and north, and
when archaeologist combined the evidence with GPS, they
noticed that the two southern openings marked the beginning
of the summer and winter solstices.
Watchers at the center would have watched the sun rise and set through the southeast and southwest
gates. The southern gates marked the sunrise and sunset of the winter and summer solstices and
would accuracy predict the course of the sun as it moved across the heavens, in a sense keeping
time. It is considered the earliest sun observatory currently known in Europe. The German
government recently erected 2,300 oak poles in a circle on the site with gateways opening to the
points of the compass where the sun rises and sets on the winter solstice, December 21.
gates. The southern gates marked the sunrise and sunset of the winter and summer solstices and
would accuracy predict the course of the sun as it moved across the heavens, in a sense keeping
time. It is considered the earliest sun observatory currently known in Europe. The German
government recently erected 2,300 oak poles in a circle on the site with gateways opening to the
points of the compass where the sun rises and sets on the winter solstice, December 21.
| The German Stonehenge |
Nearby, the 3,600-year-old "Nebra disk" was found in 1999. It is an etched bronze and gold disc
map of the heavens dating from 3,600 years ago. A 100-degree span between the Goseck "solstice
gates" corresponds with an angle on the bronze disk which measures 32 centimeters in diameter and
is the oldest realistic representation of the cosmos yet found. It is decorated with gold leaf symbols
representing the sun, moon and stars with a cluster of seven dots representing the Pleiades
constellation as it appeared 3,600 years ago.
map of the heavens dating from 3,600 years ago. A 100-degree span between the Goseck "solstice
gates" corresponds with an angle on the bronze disk which measures 32 centimeters in diameter and
is the oldest realistic representation of the cosmos yet found. It is decorated with gold leaf symbols
representing the sun, moon and stars with a cluster of seven dots representing the Pleiades
constellation as it appeared 3,600 years ago.