The Firmament

ALT 75° — OTHER WORLDS

Sun, Moon & Planets

The first maps of other worlds — Galileo’s Moon, Cassini’s hidden Moon Maiden, the spotted face of the Sun.

Selenographia — The First Moon Atlas — Selenographia, Johannes Hevelius, 1647

1647

Selenographia — The First Moon Atlas

The founding map of another world.

Galileo's Moon — Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger), Galileo Galilei, 1610

1610

Galileo's Moon

The drawings that ended a perfect heaven.

Cassini's Moon — Carte de la Lune, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, 1679

1679

Cassini's Moon

The first true map of the Moon — with a secret.

The Phases of the Moon — Micrographia stellarum phases lunae, Maria Clara Eimmart, c. 1690s

c. 1690s

The Phases of the Moon

The lunar cycle, by a forgotten woman astronomer.

The Face of the Sun — Rosa Ursina sive Sol, Christoph Scheiner, 1626–1630

1626–1630

The Face of the Sun

The spots that marred a perfect star.

The Spiral Motions of the Planets — Atlas Novus Coelestis, Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr, 1742

1742

The Spiral Motions of the Planets

The wandering planets, traced as hypnotic looping spirals.

Motus in Coelo Spiralesas engraved 1742
The Transit of Venus, 1769 — A Delineation of the Transit of Venus Expected in the Year 1769, James Ferguson, 1763

1763

The Transit of Venus, 1769

The broadside that measured the solar system.

Halley's Eclipse Map of 1715 — A Description of the Passage of the Shadow of the Moon over England, Edmond Halley, 1715

1715

Halley's Eclipse Map of 1715

The first map to predict an eclipse's shadow across a nation.