Engraving Johann Elert Bode (1747—1826). Uranographia. Berlin: for the author, 1801 Science, Industry and Business Library, The New York Public Library Astor Library     (204 k)

A gifted mathematician, Johann Elert Bode taught himself astronomy while still in his teens. From 1774 until his death in 1826, he produced a series of well-received astronomical almanacs for the observatory of the Berlin Academy, where he was appointed director and royal astronomer in 1786. His Uranographia,the most comprehensive sky atlas that had yet appeared, listed over 17,000 stars and 2,500 nebulae, and was the first to include the nebulae, star clusters, and double stars. This innovative star atlas presented scientific apparatus, as well as a new rendering of the constellation figures. Here, in a depiction of the constellation Cetus, shown not as a whale but as a sea monster, chemical and electrical apparatus are included.