The Constellations
Lyra, the Lyre
The lyre of the summer sky, its stars laid in gold.
- Chart
- Uranometria
- Astronomer
- Johann Bayer
- Date
- 1603
- Held by
- raremaps.com · via Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
$29.00
The story
A chart from Johann Bayer's Uranometria, Augsburg, 1603, engraved in copper by Alexander Mair; this copy has its stars heightened in gold. Lyra is a small constellation of the northern sky, the lyre, one of the 48 listed by Ptolemy. Old star maps often drew it as a vulture or an eagle carrying the instrument, which is why it was also called Vultur Cadens, the falling vulture. It stands nearly overhead in temperate northern skies shortly after midnight at the start of summer. Bayer's atlas was the first to cover the whole celestial sphere, and the Greek letters he gave the lyre's stars are the ones astronomers use today.
See it on your wall
A window onto the heavens, in your home
Lyra, the Lyre printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of a public-domain chart held by raremaps.com · via Wikimedia Commons — the work is centuries out of copyright.
- Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm. Framed pieces sit in a box frame under acrylic, with no mount (gold-ink editions on specialist press).
- Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Why our charts cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the gold figures, the tiny stars, the cartouches — on a matte sheet that shows every line without glare.
