Selenographia sive Lunae Descriptio
Sive Lunae Descriptio Selenographia (Latin, selenography or description of the Moon) is a work by Johannes Hevelius, which was published in 1647 in the Offizin Hünfeld, Danzig.
Content
The Selenographia contains a very precise mapping of the moon, based on Hevelius own observations. In 133 engravings show various views of the moon and drawings of astronomical devices used are shown.
In the written work, the author compares his own research with those of Galileo Galilei and shows some differences. Hevelius also points out that the quality of the records in Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius moon of 1610 is insufficient.
Importance of the work
The Selenographia is dedicated to King Władysław IV Vasa and together with the work of Giovanni Riccioli Almagestum novum astronomiam and Francesco Maria Grimaldi was it for more than a century, the standard work on the theory and cartography of the moon.
The book was groundbreaking because the printed image and the engravings used in the following decades for the design of scientific works. Isaac Newton based his Philosophiae Naturalis his work Principia Mathematica, for example, at the Selenographia of Hevelius.
Copies
Several copies of the book are still preserved and are, for example, in the following locations:
- In the Bibliothèque nationale de France
- In the library of the Polska Akademia Nauk
- In the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto
- In the Gunnerus library of technical and scientific university of Norway in Trondheim
- In the Austrian National Library in Vienna
- In the Memorial Library, Special Collections, University of Wisconsin -Madison