Bode Johann Elert

Bode, Johann Elert, the son of a schoolmaster, was born at Hamburg in 1747, and from childhood devoted himself to mathematics and astronomy. His first work was a brief essay on the solar eclipse of 1766, and this was followed by his Introduction to the Knowledge of the Starry Heaven. In 1772 Frederic II. invited him to Berlin as astronomer to the Academy of Sciences, and in 1774 he began his famous Astronomical Year-book, which is still published. His Uranographia (1801) gave three times as many stars as had ever been recorded before. He died in 1826. His name is perpetuated in "Bode's Law" (q.v.).