- Frederick de Houtman
Frederick de Houtman (1571,
Gouda -21 October 1627 ,Alkmaar ), or Frederik de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who sailed along the Western coast ofAustralia (seeHistory of Western Australia ) en route to Batavia (modern city ofJakarta ).He assisted fellow Dutch navigator
Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser with astronomical observations during his first expedition fromHolland to theEast Indies in 1595-1597.During subsequent expeditions he added further stars to the list of those observed by Keyser. Between them the
constellation s at the bottom of this article are credited to them as discoverors.De Houtman was the elder brother of
Cornelis de Houtman who in a second expedition in 1598-1599 was killed. Frederick was imprisoned by theSultan ofAceh in northernSumatra , but made good use of his two years in prison by studying the localMalay language and making astronomical observations.In 1603, after his return to Holland, Frederick published his stellar observations in an appendix to his dictionary and grammar of the Malayan and Malagasy languages ("Spraeck ende woordboeck inde Maleysche ende Madagaskarsche talen").
In 1619 he, in the VOC ship "Dordrecht" and
Jacob d'Edel , in another VOC ship "Amsterdam", sighted land on the Australian coast near present day Perth which they called "d'Edelsland". After sailing northwards along the coast he encountered and only narrowly avoided a group of shoals, subesequently called theHoutman Abrolhos . Houtman then made landfall in the region known as "Eendrachtsland " which previous explorerDirk Hartog had encountered.References
*cite web | title= VOC Historical Society Inc: "The exploration and mapping of the Australian coastline in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries" | url=http://www.voc.iinet.net.au/voyages.html | accessdate=2006-04-09
* [http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/startales1c.htm Ian Ridpath's Star Tales]
*Knobel, E. B., [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1917MNRAS..77..414K "On Frederick de Houtman's catalogue of southern stars, and the origin of the southern constellations",] "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society", Vol. 77, p.414-432. (ADS)
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