Johann Bayer Biography

Angie Aramayo

Mr. Percival

Astronomy Period 1

10 Oct. 2014

Johann Bayer

The astronomer Johann Bayer was born in 1572 on Rhain, Germany.  He went to the University of Ingolstadt where he studied philosophy and law. Like many, Bayer was interested in the new discoveries in astronomy. He did many investigations and published several books but his most famous work was the book called Uranometria. Later on in his life, Bayer was appointed as legal advisor in the city council of Augsburg. He became a successful and wealthy name due to his position. Also, he was recognized for the work that he had done in astronomy.

What people remember about Johann Bayer the most is his book, Uranometria.  The book consists of 48 constellations, which Ptolemy had discovered, and the naming of stars in the constellations. Bayer’s information about the sky was more modernized and updated compared to the previous astronomers’ information. For example, around the time Bayer wrote the book the Dutch navigator Pierter Dirckszoon Keyser defined 12 new southern constellations. Therefore, Bayer added this information in his book.  

Although Bayer may deserve the credit for updating astronomical information, his celestial atlas formed issues. To begin with, all of the constellations in his book were labeled left to right. This caused a problem because previous astronomers had done the atlases right to left, which formed confusion to many. He also bracketed stars that have the same magnitude in each constellation but, unfortunately, did not show how he assigned the letter included in each bracket. This issue made it harder for his readers to understand what he was presenting in his book. Bayer did demonstrate new information to the astronomical world but he could have improved the way he presented it to avoid confusion in later work about stars.

Bayer has also contributed to the discoveries of astronomy by demonstrating different names for the constellations from the Bible. He was a strong Protestant, therefore, finding names for constellations from the Bible seemed like the best alternative for him. He named the constellations from the Northern Hemisphere from the New Testament and the Southern Hemisphere constellations from the Old Testament. As interesting as that sounds, Bayer’s opinion about the naming of constellations was ignored.

Throughout his time, Johann Bayer was an important astronomer. He gathered all the constellations and their position and added them in his book Uranometria. Yes, the information in his book might have been confusing but at the time he wrote it, it was just what the people needed to become information about the constellations in the sky.