Johannes Hevelius. Engraving of Johannes Hevelius (1611-87), Polish-German astronomer. Hevelius opened his own observatory and published several major works on observational astronomy. In 1647 he published Selenographia (Pictures of the Moon), in which he named Moon features after features on Earth. This system was later largely displaced but some terms, such as the Alps and Seas are still used. In 1668 his Cometographia listed all comets previously observed. In 1673 he described his observatory in Machina Coelestis. Hevelius used telescopes for lunar observations but refused to use them to study stars. Despite this, he produced an accurate star catalogue, Prodomus Astronomiae.