Jakob Bartsch

Jakob Bartsch, who lived from about 1600 to 1633, was a German astronomer born at Lauban in Lusatia. He learned to use the astrolabe from the Breslau librarian Christopher Hauptfleisch and studied astronomy and medicine at the University of Strassburg. In 1624 he published Usus astronomicus planisphaerii stellati, a book of star charts that showed six constellations introduced around 1613 by Petrus Plancius, among them Camelopardalis and Monoceros, the only two of the six still in use. Bartsch was often wrongly credited with inventing these figures. In 1630 he married Susanna, the daughter of Johannes Kepler, helped Kepler with his calculations, and after Kepler death edited the posthumous Somnium and helped collect money from the estate for the widow.