Quick Information
Name: Elisabeth Koopman-Hevelius
Born: 17 january 1647
Died: 22 December 1693
Where: Danzica, Poland
Who: Astronomer
Summary: Elisabetha Koopman was the wife of the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius and helped him with his observations.
Main achievements: Author of the Catalogus Stellarum. One of the first female astronomers
webography
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mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.u
M. C. - Z. G.
Elisabeth Catherina Koopmann Hevelius is considered one of the first female astronomers, and called "the mother of moon charts". She was also the second wife of fellow astronomer Johannes Hevelius. Elisabetha Koopman's parents were Nicholas Kooperman (1601-1672) who was a prosperous merchant and Joanna Mennings (1602-1679). Nicholas and Joanna were married in Amsterdam in 1633. They moved from Amsterdam to Hamburg then, in 1636, they moved to Danzig. It was in this city, largely German speaking but a part of Poland at the time, that their daughter Elisabetha was born. She was, like Hevelius and his first wife, a member of a rich merchant family in the city of Danzig (Gdansk) located in Pomeranian Voivodeship of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and a member of the trade organisation called Hansa. Elisabetha Hevelius died in December 1693, at the age of 46, and was buried in the same tomb as her husband.
Published after the death of Johannes, and with support from King Sobieski, the Prodromus Astronomiae consisted of three separate parts: a preface (Prodromus), a star catalog (Catalogus Stellarum), and an atlas of constellations (Firmamentum Sobiescianum, sive Uranographia).
Prodromus outlines the methodology and technology used in creating the star catalogue. It provides examples of the use of the sextant and quadrant by Johannes, in tandem with known positions of the sun, in calculating each stars' longitude and latitude.
The written draft of the Catalogus Stellarum consists of 183 leaves, 145, alphabetized according to constellation, containing star positions. Each star had specific information recorded in columns: the reference number and magnitude found by astronomer Tycho Brahe, Johannes' own magnitude calculation, the star's longitude and latitude by both ecliptic coordinates measured by angular distances and meridian altitudes found using Johannes' quadrant, and the star's equatorial coordinates calculated using spherical trigonometry.
The printed version was similar to the written draft, except the two columns describing a star's ecliptic coordinates were combined, and only the single best value for the star's latitude and longitude was given. Also, the printed version held more than 600 new stars and 12 new constellations not documented in the written draft, bringing its total to 1564.
After her death, the mathematician François Arago wrote of her character: "A complimentary remark was always made about Madam Hevelius, who was the first woman, to my knowledge, who was not frightened to face the fatigue of making astronomical observations and calculations."
Although the observations of the catalog used nothing more than the astronomer's naked eye, the measurements were so precise as to be used in the making of celestial globes into the early 18th Century.