Johannes Fabricius

Johann Goldsmid,[1] better known by his Latinized name Johann(es) Fabricius (8 January 1587 – 19 March 1616),[2] eldest son of David Fabricius (1564–1617), was a Frisian/German astronomer and a modern era discoverer of sunspots in 1611, preceded by Thomas Harriot and followed by Galileo Galilei.

[4] He returned from university in the Netherlands with telescopes that he and his father turned on the Sun.

Johannes first observed a sunspot on February 27, 1611; in Wittenberg in that year he published the results of his observations in his 22-page pamphlet De Maculis in Sole observatis.....[5] It was the first publication on the topic of sunspots.

[6] The pair soon used camera obscura telescopy so as to save their eyes and get a better view of the solar disk, and observed that the spots moved.

In 1895, a monument was erected to his memory in the churchyard at Osteel, where his father had been pastor from 1603 until 1616.