Francesco Fontana

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Francesco Fontana

Francesco Fontana (1580 – c. 1656) was an Italian lawyer (University of Naples^[1] ) and an astronomer.

He created woodcuts showing the Moon and the planets as he saw them through a self-constructed telescope. In 1646 he published most of them in the book Novae coelestium terrestriumq[ue] rerum observationes, et fortasse hactenus non vulgatae. In 1645, he claimed to have observed a satellite of Venus (Paul Stroobant demonstrated in 1887 that all similar observations were not related to a putative satellite of Venus).

The lunar crater Fontana and the crater Fontana on Mars are named in his honor.

Note: See Donato Creti for paintings of planets from the next century.

References

↑ Hockey, Thomas (2009). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer Publishing. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. Retrieved August 22, 2012.

Authority control	VIAF: 120787345 ISNI: 0000 0000 8013 1414 GND: 128841796

External links

Novae coelestium ... observationes (1646, Latin)

Persondata
Name	Fontana, Francesco
Alternative names
Short description	Italian astronomers
Date of birth	1580
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death

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