HEVELIUS (HEVEL or HowELCKE), JOHANN (1611 1687 ), German astronomer, was born at Danzig, on Jan. 28, 161i. In 1641 he built an observatory in his house, provided with a splendid instrumental outfit ; his chief work was the careful chart ing of the lunar surface, his Selenographia (1647) entitling him to be called the founder of lunar topography. He also catalogued 1,564 stars; made observations of sunspots; discovered four comets, and suggested the revolution of such bodies in parabolic paths about the sun. He published two books on comets : Pro dromus cometicus (1665), and Cometographia (1668). He died on Jan. 28, 1687.
See J. F. Weidler, Historia Astronomiae (1741) ; C. B. Lengnich Hevelius: Anekdoten and Nachrichten (1780) ; J. B. J. Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie moderne (1821) ; H. Westphal, Leben, Studien and Schriften des Astronomen Johann Hevelius (1820) ; F. Bailey, "The Catalogue of Hevelius," in Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society (vol. xiii. 1843) ; R. Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie (189o 93) ; see also J. C. Puggendorff, Biograplzisch-Literarisches Handwor terbuch zur Geschichte der exacter Wissenschaften (4 vols. Leipzig, 1863-1904) ; and Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ed. R. von Lilien Cron and F. X. Wegele, 68 vols., Leipzig, 1875-1912) .