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This medal has been issued to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the death of the famous astronomer from
av. The figure of Johannes Hevelius
rv. The city of
diameter – 70 mm (2 3/4 “)
weight – 125.60 gr, (ca 4.43 oz)
metal – bronze, authentic patina, RARE!
Johannes Hevelius
Johannes Hevelius (Latin), also called Johann Hewelke or Johannes Hewel (in German), or Jan Heweliusz (in Polish), (born January 28, 1611 – died January 28, 1687), was a councillor and mayor in Danzig (Gdańsk). As an astronomer he gained the reputation of "the founder of lunar topography".
Hevelius was born in 1611 in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Hanse city of Gdańsk (Danzig) to a family of wealthy brewing merchants of Bohemian origins. His father was Abraham Hewelke (1576-1649). He studied jurisprudence at Leiden in 1630, then travelled in England and France, meeting Pierre Gassendi, Marin Mersenne and Athanasius Kircher. In 1634, he settled in his native town, and on March 21, 1635, he married Katharine Rebeschke, a neighbor who was two years younger, owning two adjacent houses. The following year, Hevelius became a member of the beer brewing guild which he led from 1643 onwards.
Throughout his life, he took a leading part in municipal administration, becoming Ratsherr (town councillor) in 1651 and later Bürgermeister (mayor) of Danzig, but from 1639 onwards, his chief interest became centered in astronomy. In 1641, he built an observatory on the roofs of his three connected houses, providing it with a splendid instrumental outfit, including ultimately a tubeless telescope of 45 m (150 ft.) focal length, constructed by himself.
This private observatory was visited by Polish Queen Maria Gonzaga on 29 January 1660, and in 1678 by Polish King John III Sobieski. A young Edmund Halley, emissary of the Royal Society of which Hevelius was a member since 1664, visited him in May 1679.
Hevelius made observations of sunspots, 1642–1645, devoted four years to charting the lunar surface, discovered the Moon's libration in longitude, and published his results in Selenographia sive Lunae Descriptio (1647), a work which entitles him to be called the founder of lunar topography.
Four comets were discovered by him, in the years (1652, 1661 (probably the same as Ikeya-Zhang), 1672 and 1677. These discoveries led to his thesis of the revolution of such bodies in parabolic tracks round the sun.
Katharine, his first wife, died in 1662, and a year later Hevelius married Elisabeth Koopmann, the young daughter of a merchant (German Kaufmann). The couple had four children. Elisabeth supported him and also published two of his works after his death.
His observatory, instruments and books were maliciously destroyed by fire on September 26, 1679. The catastrophe is described in the preface to his Annus climactericus (1685). He promptly repaired the damage, so far as to enable him to observe the great comet of December 1680. His health had suffered from the shock, and he died on his 76th anniversary, on January 28, 1687.
In late 1683, as commemoration of the victory of the Christian forces led by King John III Sobieski in the battle of Vienna, he named a newly identified constellation Scutum Sobiescianum (shield of Sobieski).
Among his works were:
Hevelius had his book printed in his own house, at lavish expense, and himself not only designed but engraved many of the printing plates.