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| May 18, 1999 400-year-old Kepler Manuscript Found A new handwritten manuscript by the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) has recently been discovered. - and it�s a horoscope... |
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May
18, 1999 According to the magazine "Astronomy" (June 1999), a previously unknown manuscript written by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler was recently discovered in the library archives at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Anthony Misch, a support astronomer at the Lick Observatory, was researching solar-eclipse expeditions, and immediately recognized the significance of the 6x8 inch framed paper.
It is a horoscope for the Austrian nobleman, Hans Hannibal Huetter von Huetterhofen, born September 10, 1586, at 5 p.m. To astrologers this again proves the importance, that astrology has played in the quest for astronomical knowledge. Johannes Kepler was a devout practitioner of astrology and this new manuscript confirms this fact. More information and an in-depth article by Barbara McKenna to be found at the Astronomy website: www.astronomy.com/horizon.html Images: University of California at Santa Cruz
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------ SAFE COPY KEPLER BEGIN ------
Image: University of California at Santa Cruz
The insight and luck of a California astronomer led to the discovery of a 400-year-old manuscript penned by 16th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler. An unremarkable six- by eight-inch framed paper in a drawer of miscellanea was discovered at the University of California in Santa Cruz by by Anthony Misch, a support astronomer at Lick Observatory, according to the university.
Misch was researching solar-eclipse expeditions in the library archives when he spotted the manuscript, a horoscope written in the late 1500s or early 1600s.
The horoscope is annotated in German and features three different hands. The most recent notes, dated 1864, is a note by "W. Struve," almost certainly the eminent German astronomer Wilhelm Struve, or his son.
Misch, a German-speaking book collector, said he immediately sensed of the significance of the document as soon as he held it in his hands. "As I looked the document over my hand was shaking," said Misch. "I knew right away this had potential to be a pretty spectacular discovery."
Through Misch's uncle, a rare book dealer, a color copy of the manuscript was sent to Klaus Mecklenburg, at the firm of J. A. Stargardt in Berlin, specialists in autograph manuscripts. Mecklenburg authenticated the document without charge and discovered that his company had a reproduction of a Kepler horoscope in their archives, also inscribed by Struve.
The UC Santa Cruz manuscript documents the birth of an Austrian nobleman named Hans Hannibal Huetter von Huetterhofen, born September 10, 1586, at 5 p.m. That information is inscribed in an ancient flowery hand at the top of the manuscript. Kepler's work appears below von Huetterhofen's. Kepler penned a complicated pattern of signs and symbols, many of which are still used to describe zodiacal constellations. On the bottom of the manuscript is written "in the hand of Kepler, from the collection of Kepler Manuscripts in Pulkova." Pulkova is an observatory founded near St. Petersburg, Russia, in the early 1800s. The inscription is signed "W. Struve" and dated the 13th of May 1864. Misch says that both Struve senior and his son served as directors of the Pulkova Observatory.
Kepler lived from 1571 to 1630. He is best known for his discovery of the laws of orbital motion (which include the observation of the elliptical orbits of the planets). Kepler was also a phenomenal mathematician and was responsible for major breakthroughs in telescope optics. He is considered to be, along with Copernicus and Galileo, among the most important astronomers of the modern era. "To have anything in the hand of Kepler is in and of itself valuable just because of who he is," Misch says.
"Kepler was required to write the occasional horoscope as part of his job as a court mathematician," said Misch. "It also may have been a source of extra income. Though he rejected conventional astrology, his belief in the influence of the planets on the lives of men and women was genuine. Astrology was widely accepted at the time, and though some may have repudiated it for religious reasons, few would have done so on an empirical basis."
Misch found the manuscript in the Lick Observatory's Mary Lea Shane Archives, which contains primarily 19th- and 20th-century materials.
According to UC Santa Cruz librarian Alan Ritch, Misch traced the trail of the document. "Tony's sleuthing led him to an article on Kepler in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (December 1, 1896). Written by the Lick Observatory's first director, Edward S. Holden, much of the article is conventional biography, but one portion was not." That portion reads as follows: "A short while ago a manuscript of Kepler's was offered for sale in Germany, and it was at once secured for the collection of the Lick Observatory… At first sight one might think that some other piece of manuscript would be more desirable for the collection of an astronomical observatory. What value could be assigned, for instance, to the scrap of paper on which the master verified his guess as to the third law of motion? But nothing is more suitable to recall the personality of Kepler than this piece of astrology, by means of which he kept the wolf from the door, and purchased the strength and leisure for higher things."
The manuscript currently is housed in the University Library's Special Collections unit.
--- SAFE COPY KEPLER END ------
