The Constellations
Cygnus, Lyra and Hercules
The northern summer sky, from the high point of the drawn constellation.
- Chart
- Uranographia
- Astronomer
- Johann Elert Bode
- Date
- 1801
- Held by
- e-rara.ch, Swiss rare-book libraries · 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 plate from Johann Elert Bode's Uranographia, published in Berlin in 1801, a star atlas of twenty copper plates. This sheet holds a stretch of the northern summer sky: Cygnus the swan, Lyra drawn as Vultur et Lyra, the vulture with its lyre, and Hercules, with the small figures of Sagitta, Vulpecula and Hevelius's Cerberus among them. Bode wanted two things at once, the exact position of every star and the full artistic figure of every constellation, and the Uranographia is counted the climax of that art. After it the pictures began to fade from star atlases. Here the swan still flies.
See it on your wall
A window onto the heavens, in your home
Cygnus, Lyra and Hercules 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 e-rara.ch, Swiss rare-book libraries · 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.
