January 19: Johann Elert Bode

Johann Elert Bode 

January 19, 1747 – November 23, 1826 

Johann Elert Bode was a German astronomer known for his reformulation and popularization of the Titius-Bode law. Bode determined the orbit of Uranus and suggested the planet's name. Bode was the director of the Berlin Observatory, where he published the Uranographia in 1801, a celestial atlas that aimed both at scientific accuracy in showing the positions of stars and other astronomical objects, as well as the artistic interpretation of the stellar constellation figures. The Uranographia marks the climax of an epoch of artistic representation of the constellations. Later atlases showed fewer and fewer elaborate figures until they were no longer printed on such tables. 

Bode also published an astronomical yearbook, another small star atlas, intended for astronomical amateurs (Vorstellung der Gestirne), and an introductory book on the constellations and their tales, which was reprinted more than ten times. 

He is credited with the discovery of Bode's Galaxy (M81). Comet Bode (C/1779 A1) and the Lunar crater Bode are named in his honor.