The Phases of the Moon

A month of nights on a single sheet.

Chart: Harmonia Macrocosmica
Plate: Typus Selenographicus Lunae Phases et Aspectus Varios Adumbrans
Astronomer: Andreas Cellarius
Date: 1708 edition of 1660
Held by: Biblioteca comunale di Trento · via Wikimedia Commons

Typus Selenographicus Lunae Phases et Aspectus Varios Adumbrans

Format

The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

From the Harmonia Macrocosmica of Andreas Cellarius, Amsterdam, 1660, reissued in 1708 by Gerard Valck and Pieter Schenk; the engraving is credited to Jan van Loon. The title promises a selenographic figure sketching the phases of the Moon and its various aspects. The phases are the plainest proof that the Moon shines by borrowed light: as it circles the Earth, the half the Sun lights turns toward us and away again, from new to full and back in about a month. Cellarius drew the whole round as a diagram, the Moon repeated at each station of its orbit, so a reader could see a month of nights at once.

See it on your wall

A window onto the heavens, in your home

The Phases of the Moon printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

The Phases of the Moon framed on the wall

About this reproduction

A faithful reproduction of a public-domain chart held by Biblioteca comunale di Trento · 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.

From the same astronomer