Celestial Charts: Antique Maps of the Heavens

by Carole Stott

Traces the history of how the heavens were charted and how astronomers first mapped the northern and then southern skies and how the constellations were devised more than 2,000 years ago. Some of the mapmakers were Copernicus, Kepler, Lacaille, Van Keulen, and Blaeu.

Genres: Art, History

128 pages, Hardcover

First published July 6, 1991

About the author

Carole Stott has written more than 20 books on astronomy and space, and is a feature writer for the UK magazine Astronomy Now. Carole authored Kingfisher’s popular I Wonder Why Stars Twinkle and Other Questions About Space and The Best-Ever Book of Astronomy. Before turning to full-time writing, she was curator, and then head, of the Greenwich Royal Observatory.

Reviews

[H. Givens]

Gorgeous pictures! Each spreads over two pages, with a margin on each side for a description and explanation of the chart. Sometimes there's an explanation of how the chart was used. There is an introduction outlining modern astronomy terminology and some of the history of stellar mapmaking as well.

[Meredith]

Gorgeous eye candy. Beautiful maps. Well written captions and explanations of the maps.

The color pallets are inspirational.