David Fabricius

David Fabricius (9 March 1564 – 7 May 1617) was a German pastor who made two major discoveries in the early days of telescopic astronomy, jointly with his eldest son, Johannes Fabricius (1587–1615).

David Fabricius (Latinization of his proper name David Faber, or David Goldschmidt; possibly Hebrew) was born at Esens, studied at the University of Helmstedt starting in 1583^[1] and served as pastor for small towns near his birthplace in Frisia (now northwest Germany and northeast Netherlands), at Resterhafe near Dornum in 1584 and at Osteel in 1603. As was common for Protestant ministers of the day, he dabbled in science: his particular interest was astronomy. Fabricius corresponded with astronomer Johannes Kepler.^[2]

Scientific work

Fabricius discovered the first known periodic variable star (as opposed to cataclysmic variables, such as novas and supernovas), Mira, in August 1596. At first he believed it to be "just" another nova, as the whole concept of a recurring variable did not exist at the time. When he saw Mira brighten again in 1609, however, it became clear that a new kind of object had been discovered in the sky.

Two years later, his son

After Fabricius denounced a local goose thief from the pulpit at Osteel in 1617, the accused man struck him on the head with a shovel and killed him.^[4]

Legacy

Copies of a map he made of Frisia in 1589 are also still extant. He is also name-checked in Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon as someone who claimed to have seen lunar inhabitants through his telescope, though that particular fact is merely part of Verne's fiction. The large (79-kilometer) crater Fabricius in the Moon's southern hemisphere is named after David Fabricius. In 1895 a monument was erected to his memory in the churchyard at Osteel where he was pastor from 1603 until 1617.

Notes