Scientist of the Day - Joseph Johann Littrow
The northern constellations Leo and Sextans, Atlas des gestirnten Himmels, by Joseph Johann Littrow, detail of plate XVI, 1839 (Linda Hall Library)
Joseph Johann Littrow, an Austrian astronomer, was born in Bohemia on Mar. 13, 1781, an auspicious day for an astronomer's birth, as that very day, William Herschel discovered the 7th planet, Uranus, in Bath, England. Littrow was a self-taught astronomer and apparently did a good job of if, as he was offered a position at the Jagiellonian University in Kracow, and then at Kazan, before becoming the head of the Observatory at the University of Vienna in 1819, a position he held for the rest of his life.
Portrait of Joseph Johann Littrow, engraved frontispiece by H. Pinhas after a drawing by Josef Kreihuber, Die Wunder des Himmels, by Joseph Johann Littrow, 1837 (Linda Hall Library)
I don’t think Littrow made many important discoveries during his career, but he was well-known for a popular astronomy book, The Wonders of the Heavens, which he published in 1834-36, in 3 volumes.. We have the second, one-volume edition in our collections (1837), with an engraved frontispiece portrait, which we borrowed for this occasion (second image).
Title page, Atlas des gestirnten Himmels, by Joseph Johann Littrow, plate XXIII, 1839 (Linda Hall Library)
But I know Littrow best through his star atlas, Atlas des gestirnten Himmels (Atlas of the Starry Heavens, 1839), which we included in an exhibition at the Library, Out of this World: The Golden Age of the Celestial Atlas (2007), available online at this link (for the catalog) or here (for the entry on Littrow).
The northern constellations Bootes and Corona, Atlas des gestirnten Himmels, by Joseph Johann Littrow, plate XIV, 1839 (Linda Hall Library)
Star atlases were in a curious transition phase in the 1830s. The famous ones of earlier times, those of Johann Bayer, Johannes Hevelius, John Flamsteed, and Johann Bode, had contained large engraved plates dominated by beautiful constellation figures, with the star positions, although increasingly accurate in their placement, almost an afterthought. Some professional astronomers, in the 1830s, seem to have begun to feel that since the constellations were human constructs, while the stars and nebulae were really there, that the constellations should take a back seat to the stars, at least in those atlases intended for astronomers. Littrow apparently subscribed to this view, and on his star maps, the constellation figures are reduced to faint outlines – almost too faint, as they are hard to make out when you look at an entire plate (fourth image), although they do emerge in details (all the other images here are details).
Detail of Felis (the Cat), Officina Typographica (Printing Press), and Pyxis (Compass), all non-traditional southern constellations, with only Pyxis now accepted, Atlas des gestirnten Himmels, by Joseph Johann Littrow, plate XXV, 1839 (Linda Hall Library)
One of the interesting features of Littrow's star atlas is that it includes nearly every constellation that Johann Bode included in his Uranographia, many recently devised by himself and contemporaries, such as Jerôme Lalande, and including the Cat, the Printing Press, the Electrical Machine, and the Hot-Air Balloon. Most of these late additions to the constellation ranks were later rejected by astronomers as unnecessary. Indeed, the last time most of them appear is in Littrow's Atlas.
Detail of Machina Electrica (Electrical Machine), a non-traditional and now rejected southern constellation, Atlas des gestirnten Himmels, by Joseph Johann Littrow, plate XXIV, 1839 (Linda Hall Library)
Littrow's Atlas was never reissued. It seems to have been preempted by Friedrich Argelander's Neue Uranometrie (1843), which had the same goal of reducing the dominance of the constellation figures, but did it better. Argelander’s atlas was the last entry in our Out of This World exhibition.
Detail of Capricorn, Globus Aerostaticus (Balloon), Microscopium, the latter two being non-traditional southern constellations, although Microscopium has been accepted, Atlas des gestirnten Himmels, by Joseph Johann Littrow, plate XXII, 1839 (Linda Hall Library)
Littrow never knew he had been superseded, as he died on Nov. 30, 1840, at the age of 59. He was succeeded by his son Karl Ludwig, who was an equally competent leader of the University of Vienna Observatory.
If you are interested in the history of constellations, especially obsolete ones, there is no better online guide than Ian Redpath's Star Tales. Here, for example, is the entry on Globus Aerostaticus, which includes a detail of the engraving in Bode's Uranographia of 1801.
William B. Ashworth, Jr., Consultant for the History of Science, Linda Hall Library and Associate Professor emeritus, Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City. Comments or corrections are welcome; please direct to ashworthw@umkc.edu.
