The Constellations
Ophiuchus, the Serpent-Bearer
The earliest of the house's serpent-bearers, 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, with the stars heightened in gold in this copy. Ophiuchus, from the Greek for serpent-bearer, is a large constellation straddling the celestial equator, drawn as a man grasping a snake; the snake is its own constellation, Serpens. Ptolemy listed it, and its old alternative name, Serpentarius, travels with this plate. Bayer's atlas was the first to cover the whole sphere and introduced the Greek letters still used for its stars. The same figure hangs in the house by Hevelius, Flamsteed and Bode, and Bayer's is the earliest of the four.
See it on your wall
A window onto the heavens, in your home
Ophiuchus, the Serpent-Bearer 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.
