Selenographia, sive Lunae Descriptio by Johannes Hevelius (1647)
Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) was
a German-Polish brewer, town councillor and astronomer. Although he played a leading role in the
government of Danzig throughout his working life, Hevelius loved to study the
night sky. He built his own observatory
and acquired the very best astronomical instruments. Between 1641 and 1647 he charted the
topography of the moon’s surface, publishing the results in his Selenographia of 1647. His engravings were so detailed and accurate
that it was over 200 years before the next significant development in lunar
mapping occurred when, during the ‘Space Race’, US and Soviet agencies vied to be
the first to glimpse the far side of the moon.
Hevelius went on to discover four comets, and write further treatises on
stars and the movement of heavenly bodies.
In 1679 his observatory was destroyed by fire, and he lost his precious
notes and instruments. The astronomer
never fully recovered from the shock; although he rebuilt the observatory and
refurnished it, he did not live to see the publication of his complete
celestial map in 1690.
The Cathedral Library has a
splendid edition of Hevelius’s Selenographia,
printed in Danzig in the mid-seventeenth century. Its frontispiece shows the figure of
‘Contemplatio’ holding a telescope. The
sun appears to her right and the moon to her left.
Inside the book there are
engravings of Hevelius’s instruments, including this one of the telescope on
the roof of his observatory.
The detail in the map of the
lunar surface is outstanding for its time.
In addition to his topographical studies, Hevelius also charted the
phases of the moon.