Johann Bayer

Johann Bayer ( * 1572 in Rain, district of Donau -Ries, † March 7, 1625 in Augsburg ) was a German astronomer and lawyer. He created a significant sky atlas, the Uranometria.

Bayer attended the Latin school in Rain and probably later went to Augsburg to secondary school. From 1592, he studied philosophy and law at the University of Ingolstadt. He graduated end of the 16th century as " law degree " from and settled as a lawyer in Augsburg.

In addition, Bayer operated extensively in the fields of mathematics, archeology and astronomy. During a stay in Rome, he participated in excavations at Via Nomentana and made ​​drawings of the most important finds on.

His main work was the astronomical sky atlas Uranometria, published in 1603 in Augsburg. The based in part on the then very precise observational data of Tycho Brahe Atlas was the first which covered the entire celestial sphere. It contained 51 cards: one each for the 48 Ptolemaic constellations, one for the southern sky, and two planispheres with the entire northern and southern sky.

In the Uranometria Bayer introduced a system for naming stars with Greek and Latin letters, the " Bayer letters ". Moreover, he added, the classical constellations of antiquity new ones that are still in use today.

To commemorate Bayers an impact crater was named on the moon. In his hometown of Rain Johannes Bayer Strasse recall ( since 1946 ) and the Johannesburg - Bayer Primary School (since 1994) to him.