Dramatic little star chart of a portion of the southern sky during March. The constellations Gemini, Orion, Taurus, and the Milky Way are among those shown. Johann Elert Bode, a self-taught astronomer, served as director of the astronomical observatory of the Berlin Academy of Science for nearly 40 years. He edited the Astonomisches Jahrbuch every year from 1774 to 1826, and published several popular astronomy texts and atlases.