BornBernburg, (Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany), circa1560
Diedpossibly in Bernburg, (Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany), circa1600
Christoph Rothmann constructed the first modern star catalog based entirely on his own observations.
He was one of the most outstanding astronomers of the sixteenth century, but we have scant information on Rothmann’s life. His enrollment at the University of Wittenberg on 1 August 1575 is authenticated. There is no reliable information about the course of his studies or which academic degree he received.
According to all we know, Rothmann concerned himself thoroughly with mathematics and astronomy in Wittenberg. He expressed that to Tycho Brahe as well as in his extant manuscript works. In November 1584 he started to work with Landgrave Wilhelm IV of Hessen-Kassel as an astronomer at the local observatory. (Dates usually referred to in the literature turn out to be wrong.) Rothmann stayed in Kassel until mid-1590. In the summer of that year he went on a journey to Brahe,...
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Selected References
Barker, Peter (1993). “The Optical Theory of Comets from Apian to Kepler.” Physis, n.s., 30: 1–25.
Brahe, Tycho. Epistolarum astronomicarum libri. 1596. Vol. 6 of Tychonis Brahe opera omnia, edited by J. L. E. Dreyer. Copenhagen, 1919. Subsequent editions, Nuremberg, 1601 and Frankfurt am Main, 1610. (For Rothmann’s correspondence with Tycho Brahe.)
Flamsteed, John (1725). Historia coelestis Britannicae volumen tertium. London.
Goldstein, Bernard R. and Peter Barker (1995). “The Role of Rothmann in the Dissolution of the Celestial Spheres.” British Journal for the History of Science 28: 385–403.
Granada, Miguel A. (1996). El debate cosmológico en 1588: Bruno, Brahe, Rothmann, Ursus, Röslin. Naples: Istituto Italiana per gli Studi Filosofici.
Hamel, Jürgen (1998). Die astronomischen Forschungen in Kassel unter Wilhelm IV: Mit einer Teiledition der deutschen Übersetzung des Hauptwerkes von Copernicus um 1586. (The astronomical research in Kassel under Wilhelm IV: With a partial edition of the German translation of the main work of Copernicus c. 1586.) Acta Historica Astronomiae, Vol. 2. Thun: Harri Deutsch.
Rothmann, Christoph. Catalogus stellarum fixarum ex observationibus Hassiacis, ad annum 1586. 36 fol., 2° MS astron. 7.
— Observationum stellarum fixarum liber primus. Kassel 1589, 88 Bl., 2° MS astron. 5/7. (An edition by M.A. Granada, J. Hamel and L. von. Mackensen is under preparation.)
— Astronomia: In qua hypotheses Ptolemaicae ex hypothesibus Copernici corriguntur et supplentur: et inprimis intellectus et usus tabularum Prutenicarum declaratur et demonstrator. 183 fol., 4° MS astron. 11.
— Organon mathematicum, contens logistica sexagenaria, doctrina sinuum, et doctrina triangulorum. Quo congnito quilibet suo marte Ptolemaeum, Copernicum, Regiomontanum, reliquosque artificos facilime intelligere. 255 fol., 4° MS math. 29.
— (2003). Christoph Rothmanns Handbuch der Astronomie von 1589, edited by Miguel A. Granada, Jürgen Hamel, and Ludolf van Mackensen. Acta Historica Astronomiae, Vol. 19. Frankfurt am Main: Harri Deutsch, 2003.
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Translated by Günther Görz.
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Hamel, J., Rothenberg, E. (2014). Rothmann, Christoph. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1192
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