Johann Friedrich Weidler

Johann Friedrich Weidler (13 April 1691 in Großneuhausen – 13 November 1755 in Wittenberg) was a German jurist and mathematician.

Of the compendiums that he wrote as the basis of his lectures, the Institutiones mathematicae, which also included astronomy, received so much attention that they were published five times during Weidler's lifetime and had further editions after his death.

But his greatest work was the history of his favorite subject, astronomy, which contains a wealth of biographical and bibliographical data.

Weidler complemented it in 1755 with Bibliographia Astronomica; temporis quo libri vel compositi vel editi sunt, ordine servato: ad supplendam et illustrandam astronomiae Historiam digesta, a work that served as a basis for Lalande's own astronomical bibliography.

He also wrote a description of the transits of Mercury through the sun in 1736 and 1747 and a calculation of the longitude and latitude of the city of Wittenberg, over which work his death overtook him.