SkyEye

The Log and Line

German astronomer Johann Elert Bode (1747–1826) is best known today for Bode's Law and naming the newly discovered planet Uranus. But he also was director of the Berlin Observatory for many years and published the celebrated celestial atlas Uranographia in 1801. He also proposed several new constellations, none of which are now recognised. Lochium Funis or 'log and line' was a nautical tool used to measure the speed of a ship. It winds around Pyxis, the ship's compass, in the southern skies. However, the constellation was clearly not up to speed and Bode was the only one to ever use it.