John Bayer

      John Bayer wrote the star atlas, Uranometria, and having introduced a star nomenclature. Bayer was born in Bavaria, Germnay, in 1572.  He became a lawyer and astronomer, and published his work in Italy.  Bayer was a layer professionally, but his attempts at astronomy wound up being highly succesfull, as he produced the very beneficial book, Uranometria.

      Uranometria was a first of its kind book. It was a star atlas, or a directory of the stars in the sky. This allowed astronomers to have much greater accuracy when scanning the night sky than before, and greatly advanced astronomy. Now, astronomers all had a reference they could use for measuring the sky. The Atlas was originally engraved on copper plates by Alexander Mair.  It contains 51 star charts.  It uses a grid to show the location of stars, to high accuracy. 

      As a lawyer, Bayer studied in Augsburg and Ingolstadt, and worked for the city council in the former.  During this period, he made his most important contribution, which happened to be in the field of astronomy, and the legal system, his Uranometria.  He drew from primarily from Tycho Brahes wok for this, and copublished it with Giovanni Gallucci.


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"Johann Bayer, Uranometria, 1603." Johann Bayer, Uranometria, 1603. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. <http://www.lindahall.org/services/digital/ebooks/bayer/>.