Frederick de Houtman

Frederick de Houtman
Portrait by David de Meyne in 1617
Born	1571 Gouda, Holland, Seventeen Provinces
Died	October 21, 1627 (aged 55–56) Alkmaar, Holland, Dutch Republic
Nationality	Dutch
Occupation	Explorer

Frederick de Houtman (1571 – 21 October 1627), or Frederik de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who sailed along the Western coast of Australia en route to Batavia, known today as Jakarta in Indonesia. He made pioneering observations of the southern stars that contributed to the creation of 12 new southern constellations.

Frederick de Houtman was born in Gouda, Holland, Seventeen Provinces.

He assisted fellow Dutch navigator Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser with astronomical observations during the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies in 1595–1597 (during which Keyser died). He also sailed in 1598–1599 on a second expedition led by his brother Cornelis de Houtman. Cornelis was killed on that expedition, and Frederick was imprisoned by the Sultan of Aceh in northern Sumatra, but used his two years of captivity to study the local Malay language and to make astronomical observations. These observations supplemented those made by Keyser on the first expedition. The constellations formed from their observations were first published in 1597 or 1598 on a globe by Petrus Plancius, and later globes (particularly one published by Willem Blaeu in 1603) incorporated adjustments based on de Houtman's later observations. Today credit for these constellations is given to Keyser, de Houtman, and Plancius. They are also associated with Johann Bayer, who included them in his influential celestial atlas Uranometria in 1603.

In 1603, after his return to Holland, de Houtman published his stellar observations in an appendix to his dictionary and grammar of the Malayan and Malagasy languages.