, a celebrated astronomer of Germany, whose name deserves to be
, a celebrated astronomer of
Germany, whose name deserves to be preserved, was born
about 1542, in the dutchy of Wirtemberg, and spent his
youth in Italy, where he made a public speech in favour of
Copernicus, which served to wean Galileo from Aristotle and
Ptolemy, to whom he had been hitherto entirely devoted.
He returned afterwards to Germany, and became professor
of mathematics at Tubingen; where he had among his
scholars the great Kepler. Tycho Brahe, though he did not
assent to Maestlin, has yet allowed him to be an extraordinary person, and well acquainted with the science of
astronomy. Kepler has praised several ingenious inventions of Mæstlin’s, in his “Astronomia Optica.
” He died
in De
Stella nova Cassiopeia;
” “Ephemerides,
” according to the
Prutenic Tables, which were first published by Erasmus
Reinoldus in 1551. He published Iikew4se “Thesis de
Eclipsibus
” and an “Epitome of Astronomy,
” &c.