Johann Bayer’s star atlas and catalog, Uranometria, was the first of its kind. It represented a tremendous leap forward both esthetically and for its astronomical content, and became the standard for all later star atlases. Bayer’s atlas was the first to portray the constellations as maps. Each plate has a carefully engraved grid so star positions can be determined precisely and used the star naming system that was adopted by later stellar cartographers. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

Measuring 65 cm. and with double-page plates, this is the largest star atlas that has ever been published. The positions of more than 17,000 stars are given, as well as most constellations ever invented, and no less than 2500 nebulae that had been discovered and catalogued by William Herschel. The style of the constellation figures is new, taking a step away from the tradition of Bayer, Hevelius, or Flamsteed. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

John Flamsteed was the first Astronomer Royal of England. His principal motive in publishing this atlas was to correct what he felt were serious errors in Bayer's reverse depiction of the constellation figures, but it was welcomed because of its unprecedented accuracy. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

Jean Fortin, a globe maker for the French royal family, was commissioned to produce a revised edition of Flamsteed's star atlas. All of Flamsteed’s twenty-six plates were re-engraved on a much smaller scale. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

Neuester Himmels was published in an unusual print style and technique with white stars shown against a black background. The first pressing was made before the constellation figures and text details were added. These prints looked like a night sky. Then the finished plate was printed once more, providing a comparison with figures. The maps represent the stars with a Flamsteed projection. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

Christoph Grienberger's atlas was the first to show the New Star or Nova discovered by Tycho Brahe and is mainly based on Tycho's observations. Despite this significant contribution, this now very rare atlas was not distributed widely and was unknown to later atlas compilers. (Source: W. Ashworth, Further Out.)

Johannes Hevelius’s Prodomus Astromomiae or Firmatmentum is notable for many reasons. It contains fifty-six, double-page, engraved star maps; the positions for the charts from Hevelius’s star catalog were published together with the atlas; and it depicts the constellations as they would appear on a globe. This atlas also introduced eleven new constellations and includes a depiction of the southern stars. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

Hyginus’s Poeticon Astronomicon was one of the primary ancient literary sources on the constellations. This version from Sentius and Santritter was first published in the 1482 edition and again in  1485. The figures are somewhat crude but lively, and quite charming. Although star positions are indicated, they have little to do with either the positions described by Hyginus, or the actual positions of the stars in the sky, thus it is really not accurate to call these star maps. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

Phillipe La Hire was a notable French astronomer, and his two planispheres of the northern and southern stars were published as individual sheets (although they were included in many French atlases throughout the eighteenth century). The copies presented here were colored expertly by hand. The constellation figures are ultimately derived from the prototypes in Bayer's Uranometria. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

Meissner's Hand-Atlas was produced as a companion to Christian Rudiger's Popular Introduction to the Heavens. The star atlas portion of this work was based on Flamsteed's Atlas Celeste of 1795, and Bode's Uranographia of 1801. The plate order and field of view were adopted from Flamsteed and the constellation figures were based on Bode. (Source: W. Ashworth, Further Out.)

Intended for use as a popular atlas, Mollinger's Sky Atlas with Transparent Stars used an ingenious device. Star maps, printed on 16 cards with a transparent backing, had different sized holes punched at the star positions. When held to a bright light in a dim room, the stars appeared in the sky as they would in the sky. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

Sozviezdiia Predstavlennyia na XXX Tablitsakh is the earliest Russian star atlas. A translation of the title page for this book reads: Presentation of Constellations in 30 Tables with Description and Guide to Finding Them Comfortably in the Sky: Composed for Educational Institutions and Amateur Astronomers. Based on the 1806 edition of Bode's atlas, this book contains a number of constellations that are now obsolete. (Source: W. Ashworth, Further Out.)

Little is known about Johann Rost, the author of the 1723 Atlas Portatilis Coelistis, other than that he was a Nuremberg astronomer. His portable atlas follows the style of Johannes Hevelius by the inclusion of constellations invented by Hevelius. There are fourteen plates, each one usually divided into three panels, to present forty-one constellation maps. Other plates are scattered throughout the book, some in layers and the moon makes a dramatic presentation as a foldout, making a total of thirty-eight tables. The engravings are wonderfully hand-colored. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

Coelum Stellatum Christianum was Schiller’s attempt to replace all of the pagan constellations with Christian counterparts. The new system was too radical a change and never caught on, but for astronomers, this atlas had other contributions to make. Schiller worked with Johann Bayer to include corrections and additions to the stars and their positions, producing a more accurate atlas than Bayer’s Uranometria. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

Christoph Semler’s atlas takes a departure from its predecessors with the black background on the woodblock prints. Semler derived his constellations and star positions from the Johannes Hevelius atlas and included all nine of the new constellation figures that Hevelius introduced. However, all of Semler’s constellation figures are reversed, being depicted from the vantage of an observer on Earth. (Source: W. Ashworth, Out of This World.)

This selection of images are a sample of the large collection taken from atlases including 1782 and 1805 editions of Johann Bode's Vorstellung der Gestirne, Andreas Cellarius's Harmonia Macrocosmica, and C.G. Reidig's Himmels-Atlas. Learn more about the Golden Age of the Star Atlas at Out of This World.