A. V. Kuzmin

The early history of optical observations in astronomy still contains many little-known episodes concerning the first attempts to observe the heavens with the aid of glass lenses. The «Uranometria» of Johann Bayer (1572-1625), a celestial atlas compiled at the beginning of the seventeenth century, contains an accidental trace or symbolic astronomical record of the early attempts at using optical components in angle-measuring devices. This atlas was published in Augsburg in 1603 as an illustrative appendix to Tycho Brahe’s celestial catalog. Tycho, however, died suddenly in 1601 and never saw Bayer’s publication.