The Constellations
Sextans Uraniae
An instrument lost to fire, set among the stars.
- 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
Sextans Uraniae, Urania's sextant, from the Firmamentum Sobiescianum, sive Uranographia of Johannes Hevelius, Gdańsk, 1690. On September 26, 1679, fire destroyed Hevelius's observatory, his instruments and his books. Among the losses was the sextant he had used for his measurements. He gave it a place in the sky, a new constellation of faint stars between Leo and Hydra on the celestial equator, named in memory of the lost instrument. The shock of the fire stayed with him, and he died in 1687. The constellation he made out of that loss is still one of the 88.
See it on your wall
A window onto the heavens, in your home
Sextans Uraniae 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.
