Johann Heinrich Westphal

Not to be confused with J. G. Westphal, who discovered the lost periodic comet 20D/Westphal in 1852.

Johann Heinrich Westphal (January 31, 1794 – 1831) was a German astronomer, mathematician, and geographer.

Westphal was born in Schwerin in 1794.[1] After fighting as part of the Lützow Free Corps during the Napoleonic Wars, he studied at the University of Göttingen.[1] In 1817, he received his doctorate with a thesis on the parallelogram of force.[1] From 1820 to 1822, he lectured on astronomy in Stettin and published several papers.[1] He translated Giuseppe Piazzi's Lezioni elementari di astronomia ad use del real osservatorio di Palermo into German as Lehrbuch der Astronomie in 1822.[2]

In 1822, Westphal embarked on a research expedition to Egypt and Palestine with Peter von Medem and Gustav Parthey.[1] He made a number of detailed sketches that were converted into an accurate map of Jerusalem, published as Jerusalem und seine nächsten Umgebungen in 1825 by Heinrich Berghaus in his journal Hertha.[1] The map was largely forgotten by later cartographers in the 19th and 20th centuries.[1]

His professional career was spent mostly in Italy, where he published several travel guides describing different regions in the peninsula under the name Justus Tommasini.[1] He died in Sicily and was buried in the churchyard of Termini Imerese.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Goren, H.; Schelhaas, B. (2015). "An early measuring of the Holy City, forgotten for over a century: Westphal's Jerusalem map of 1825". Die Erde – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin. 146 (1): 63–78. doi:10.12854/erde-146-6. Retrieved 5 June 2025.
  2. ^ Houzeau, Jean-Charles (1882). Vade-mecum de l'astronomie. F. Hayez. p. 21. Retrieved 5 June 2025.


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