ALT 90° — THE ZENITH
The Systems of the World
How we imagined the machinery of heaven — Ptolemy’s, Copernicus’s, and Tycho’s cosmos, wheeling.
1660
The Ptolemaic System
The universe with the Earth at its heart.
Planisphaerium Ptolemaicum
1660
The Copernican System
The universe remade, with the Sun at its centre.
Planisphaerium Copernicanum
1660
The Tychonic System
A brilliant compromise between two heavens.
Scenographia Systematis Mundani Tychonici
1668
Cometographia
The great book of comets.
1598
Tycho's Great Instruments
The machines that measured the heavens.
1742
The Solar System
The Sun-centred cosmos, engraved as a jewelled machine.
Systema Solare et Planetariumas engraved 1742
1660
A View of the Copernican System
The Sun-centred universe, staged in three dimensions.
Scenographia Systematis Copernicanias mapped 1660
1651
The Weighing of the World Systems
Urania holds the scales as two cosmologies are weighed.
Almagestum Novum, frontispiece