The Constellations
Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs
Hevelius gave the herdsman his dogs, and the sky kept them.
- Chart
- Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia
- Astronomer
- Johannes Hevelius
- Date
- 1690
- 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
Canes Venatici from the Firmamentum Sobiescianum, sive Uranographia of Johannes Hevelius, Gdańsk, 1690. The hunting dogs are Hevelius's own creation, a small northern constellation he formed in the seventeenth century and drew as the hounds of Boötes the Herdsman, their neighbour in the sky. Unlike his Cerberus, the dogs stayed: Canes Venatici is one of the 88 constellations the International Astronomical Union recognises. Its brightest star is Cor Caroli, at magnitude 2.9, and within its borders lies the Whirlpool Galaxy, a spiral seen face-on. Few people get to add a figure to the sky. Hevelius added this one for good.
See it on your wall
A window onto the heavens, in your home
Canes Venatici, the Hunting Dogs 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.
