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30-472: Selenographia, sive Lunae descriptio ( Selenography, or A Description of The Moon ) was printed in 1647 and is a milestone work by Johannes Hevelius . It includes the first detailed map of the Moon, created from Hevelius's personal observations. In his treatise, Hevelius reflected on the difference between his own work and that of Galileo Galilei . Hevelius remarked that the quality of Galileo's representations of

60-512: A 7.5 inch (190 mm) diameter 123 ft (37.5 m) focal length objective to the Royal Society of London in 1690. Adrien Auzout and others made telescopes of from 300 to 600 ft (90 to 180 m) focal length, and Auzout proposed a huge aerial telescope 1,000 ft in length that he would use "to observe animals on the Moon". Astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini had the wooden Marly Tower, originally built as part of

90-658: A historical alternative spelling for the English word hawk , which changed into Hawelke or Hawelecke . In Poland he is known as Jan Heweliusz . Other versions of the name include Hewel, Hevel, Hevelke or Hoefel, Höwelcke, Höfelcke. According to Feliks Bentkowski (1814), during his early years he also signed as Hoefelius. Along with the Latinized version of his name, Ludwig Günther-Fürstenwalde (1903) also reports Hevelius's signature as Johannes Höffelius Dantiscanus in 1631 and Hans Höwelcke in 1639. Hevelius's father

120-468: A member of the beer - brewing guild , which he led from 1643 onwards. Throughout his life, Hevelius took a leading part in municipal administration , becoming town councillor in 1651; but from 1639 on, his chief interest was astronomy . In 1641 he built an observatory on the roofs of his three connected houses, equipping it with splendid instruments, ultimately including a large Keplerian telescope of 46 m (150 ft) focal length , with

150-447: A swiveling ball-joint on top of an adjustable mast. The eyepiece was mounted in another short tube (sometimes on a stand), and the two tubes were kept aligned by a taut connecting string. Christiaan Huygens published designs for these tubeless "aerial telescopes" in his 1684 book Astroscopia Compendiaria , and their invention has been attributed to him and his brother Constantijn, although similar designs were also used by Adrien Auzout ;

180-425: A tube. Instead, the objective was mounted on a pole, tree, tower, building or other structure on a swivel ball-joint. The observer stood on the ground and held the eyepiece , which was connected to the objective by a string or connecting rod. By holding the string tight and maneuvering the eyepiece, the observer could aim the telescope at objects in the sky. The idea for this type of telescope may have originated in

210-475: A wood and wire tube he constructed himself. This may have been the longest "tubed" telescope before the advent of the tubeless aerial telescope . The observatory was known by the name Sternenburg ( Latin : Stellaeburgum ; Polish : Gwiezdny Zamek ) or "Star Castle". Polish Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga visited this private observatory on 29 January 1660. As a subject of the Polish kings, Hevelius enjoyed

240-418: Is considered the first female astronomer. His observatory, instruments and books were destroyed by fire on 26 September 1679. The catastrophe is described in the preface to his Annus climactericus (1685). He promptly repaired the damage enough to enable him to observe the great comet of December 1680. He named the constellation Sextans in memory of this lost instrument. In late 1683, in commemoration of

270-551: Is located. After gymnasium (secondary school), where he was taught by Peter Crüger , Hevelius in 1630 studied jurisprudence at Leiden , then travelled in England and France, meeting Pierre Gassendi , Marin Mersenne and Athanasius Kircher . In 1634 he settled in his native town, and on 21 March 1635 married Katharine Rebeschke, a neighbour two years younger who owned two adjacent houses. The following year, Hevelius became

300-663: Is thus considered the last astronomer to do major work without the use of a telescope. Hevelius made observations of sunspots , 1642–1645, devoted four years to charting the lunar surface, discovered the Moon 's libration in longitude, and published his results in Selenographia, sive Lunae descriptio (1647), a work which entitles him to be called "the founder of lunar topography ". He discovered four comets , in 1652, 1661 (probably Ikeya-Zhang ), 1672 and 1677. These discoveries led to his thesis that such bodies revolve around

330-677: The Machine de Marly to lift water for the reservoirs and fountains at the Gardens of Versailles , moved to the grounds of the Paris Observatory . On this tower he mounted long tubed telescopes and the objectives of aerial telescopes made for him by the Italian optician Giuseppe Campani . In 1684 he used one of his aerial telescopes to find Dione and Tethys , two satellites of Saturn . James Bradley , on December 27, 1722, measured

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360-622: The Moon in Sidereus nuncius (1610) left something to be desired. Selenography was dedicated to King Ladislaus IV of Poland and along with Riccioli / Grimaldi 's Almagestum Novum became the standard work on the Moon for over a century. There are many copies that have survived, including those in Bibliothèque nationale de France , in the library of Polish Academy of Sciences , in the Stillman Drake Collection at

390-547: The Sun in parabolic paths. A complex halo phenomenon was observed by many in the city on 20 February 1661 , and was described by Hevelius in his Mercurius in Sole visus Gedani the following year. Katharine, his first wife, died in 1662, and a year later Hevelius married Elisabeth Koopmann , the young daughter of a merchant family. The couple had four children. Elisabeth supported him, published two of his works after his death, and

420-820: The Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library at the University of Toronto, and in the Gunnerus Library at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. This article about an astronomy -related book is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Johannes Hevelius According to the Polish Academy of Sciences (1975) the origin of the name goes back to the surname Hawke ,

450-673: The Polish world ( civis Orbis Poloniae ) and stated in a letter dated from 9 January 1681 that he was Civis orbis Poloni, qui in honorem patriae suae rei Literariae bono tot labores molestiasque, absit gloria, cum maximo facultatum suarum dispendio perduravit , i.e. "citizen of Polish world who, for glory of his country and for the good of science, worked so much, and while not boasting much, executed his work with most effort per his abilities". Halley had been instructed by Robert Hooke and John Flamsteed to persuade Hevelius to use telescopes for his measurements, yet Hevelius demonstrated that he could do well with only quadrant and alidade . He

480-568: The city limits. In May 1679 the young Englishman Edmond Halley visited him as emissary of the Royal Society , whose fellow Hevelius had been since 1664. The Royal Society considers him one of the first German fellows. Małgorzata Czerniakowska (2005) writes that "Jan Heweliusz was the first Pole to be inducted into the Royal Society in London. This important event took place on 19th March 1664". Hevelius considered himself as being citizen of

510-527: The comparison they noted that the Hadley reflector "will bear such a charge as to make it magnify the object as many times as the latter with its due charge", and that it represented objects as distinct, though not altogether so clear and bright as the Huygens aerial telescope. The need for very long focal length refracting telescope objectives was finally eliminated with the invention of the achromatic lens in

540-472: The diameter of Venus with an aerial telescope whose objective had a focal length of 212 ft (65 m). Francesco Bianchini tried to map the surface of that same planet and deduce its rotational period in Rome in 1726 using a 2.6" (66 mm) 100 foot focal length aerial telescope. The extreme difficulty of using these very long focal length telescopes led astronomers to develop alternative designs. One

570-434: The idea is even sometimes attributed to Christopher Wren . The Huygenses contrived some ingenious arrangements for aiming these "aerial telescopes" at an object visible in the night sky. The telescope could be aimed at bright objects such as planets by looking for their image cast on a white pasteboard ring or oiled translucent paper screen and then centering them in the eyepiece. Fainter objects could be found by looking for

600-450: The late 17th century with the Dutch mathematician , astronomer and physicist Christiaan Huygens and his brother Constantijn Huygens, Jr. , though it is not clear if they actually invented it. Telescopes built in the 17th and early 18th century used single element non-achromatic objective lenses that suffered from interfering rainbow halos ( chromatic aberration ) introduced by

630-596: The middle of the 18th century. In May 2014 a working replica of an aerial Huygens telescope was unveiled at the Old Leiden Observatory in Leiden. It was commissioned by Hans de Rijk, a Dutch science promoter. It was unveiled during the first annual 'Kaiser Lente Lezingen' (Kaiser Spring Lectures), which is a local astronomy lecture event. Unlike the original telescopes this one only has a 4-meter focal length, making it much easier to operate as compared to

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660-417: The non-uniform refractive properties of single glass lenses. This degraded the quality of the images they produced. Telescope makers from that era found that very long focal length objectives had no appreciable chromatic aberration (the uncorrected chromatic aberration fell within the large diffraction pattern at focus). They also realized that when they doubled the diameter of their objectives they had to make

690-458: The objective's focal length 4 times as long (focal length had to be squared ) to achieve the same amount of minimal chromatic aberration. As the objective diameter of these refracting telescopes was increased to gather more light and resolve finer detail they began to have focal lengths as long as 150 feet. Besides having very long tubes, these telescopes needed scaffolding or long masts and cranes to hold them up. Their value as research tools

720-659: The patronage of four consecutive kings of Poland, and his family was raised to the position of nobility by the King of Poland John II Casimir in 1660, who previously visited his observatory in 1659. While the noble status was not ratified by the Polish Sejm Hevelius's coat of arms includes the distinctive Polish royal crown. The Polish King John III Sobieski who regularly visited Hevelius numerous times in years 1677–1683 released him from paying taxes connected to brewing and allowed his beer to be sold freely outside

750-575: The reflection of a lamp held in the observer's hand being bounced back by the objective and then centering that reflection on the object. Other contrivances for the same purpose are described by Philippe de la Hire and by Nicolaas Hartsoeker . The objectives for aerial telescopes sometimes had very long focal lengths. Christiaan Huygens states that in 1686 he and his brother made objectives of 8 inch (200 mm) and 8.5 inch (220 mm) diameter and 170 and 210 ft (52 and 64 m) focal length, respectively. Constantijn Huygens, Jr. presented

780-573: The shock of the 1679 fire and he died on his 76th birthday, 28 January 1687. Hevelius was buried in St. Catherine's Church in his hometown. Descendants of Hevelius live in Urzędów in Poland where they support local astronomy enthusiasts. Aerial telescope An aerial telescope is a type of very long focal length refracting telescope , built in the second half of the 17th century, that did not use

810-483: The victory of Christian forces led by Polish King John III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna , he invented and named the constellation Scutum Sobiescianum (Sobieski's Shield), now called Scutum . This constellation first occurred publicly in his star atlas Firmamentum Sobiescianum , which was printed in his own house at lavish expense, and he himself engraved many of the printing plates. His health had suffered from

840-497: Was Abraham Hewelke (1576–1649), his mother Kordula Hecker (1576–1655). They were German-speaking Lutherans , wealthy brewing merchants of Bohemian origin. As a young boy, Hevelius was sent to Gądecz (Gondecz) where he studied the Polish language . Hevelius brewed the famous Jopen beer, which also gave its name to the "Jopengasse"/"Jopejska" Street, after 1945 renamed as Piwna Street (Beer Street), where St. Mary's Church

870-413: Was minimal since the telescope's support frame and tube flexed and vibrated in the slightest breeze and sometimes collapsed altogether. Around 1675 the brothers Christiaan and Constantijn Huygens decided to accommodate the very long focal length objectives they were creating by eliminating the tube altogether. In the Huygens' "aerial" telescope the objective was mounted inside a short iron tube mounted on

900-538: Was the reflecting telescope . In 1721 John Hadley showed a Newtonian reflecting telescope to the British Royal Society with a 6-inch diameter mirror. The instrument was examined by Society members James Pound and James Bradley who compared its performance to the 7.5 inch (190 mm) diameter aerial telescope built by Constantijn Huygens, Jr. that the Society had in their collection. In

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