Images - Representations

Image page

Click on this link and it should open in another window: http://skytonight.org/Tau-Bayer-1661

Here is a plate of Taurus the Bull from the Uranometria star atlas of Bayer. The Sky Tonight project begins with high quality images on pages like this.

Image

Click on the image itself to view it on its own. You can download images across the site.

Images are the basic building block of The Sky Tonight. These images are cultural representations of the sky at night. Cultural representations of the night sky may comprise many forms, including but not limited to books.

The project depends upon libraries and collectors who are willing to release their images into the public domain, or to distribute them under a free Creative Commons (CC) license. Special thanks to the History of Science Collections of the University of Oklahoma Libraries for providing the images at the launch of this project.

Right Sidebar: Image Links

Links for this particular image will be found in the right sidebar. Eventually, the images will have links going back to the online repository of the contributing library, when available. If any links in the right sidebar exist, explore as you  wish. Then use the back button in your browser to return to this page.

Left Sidebar: Image Info

Glance over the information about the image displayed in the left sidebar. Explore any of them that catch your interest. Then use the back button in your browser to return to this page.

Source ID Click to view the page for Bayer's Uranometria. We'll come back to this later.
Page/Plate # This field indicates where in the Uranometria this illustration is found. Knowing this can be life-saving with a larger book, if you will view the entire work in an online repository. Use this in citing a particular image.
IAU Abbr

The official constellation abbreviation adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

This is the same abbreviation as is found in the constellation navigation bar near the bottom of any page. Click "Tau" in that navigation bar at the bottom of the page to visit the Taurus constellation page, just as you might do using the IAU Constellations tab from the main navigation menu (we'll explore constellation pages later).
IAU Constellation The full name of the constellation, with its abbreviation and English translation.
Genre

The most common genre is "Book."

Other genres include: Architecture, Art, Game or Kit, Literature, Movie, and Music.
Representation Type

Representation types include: 

  • Annotation (hand-written)
  • Associated Depiction (e.g., the border of a star map)
  • Constellation Figure (with or without a star pattern)
  • Fine Art Photograph
  • Folding plate
  • Frontispiece
  • Hand-colored print    
  • History of the Book  
  • Iconographical figure    
  • Planisphere (a hemisphere of the sky)
  • Source Page (a complete page, uncropped)
  • Star Map (projected on a grid)
  • Star Pattern (with or without a grid)
  • Stick Figure (with or without a star pattern)
  • Title page (of a book)
Star map shown from

Options include:

  • "Earth looking up and out" (as the sky appears to us outside);
  • "Outside looking in" (as the sky appears on a celestial globe.
Constellation figure drawn from:

Options include:

  • Front
  • Back or Behind: Left and right reversed (e.g., a map showing a star as the left hand when it is traditionally regarded as the right hand)
  • Side
  • Above
  • Below
Contributor The contributing library or collector, e.g., The History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries. Use this information to write an appropriate attribution statement whenever you use the image.
Permission Whether the image is in the public domain or is distributed by one of the Creative Common licenses.
Menu Category The image can be accessed via the tabs listed here on the main navigation menu.
File type

Most commonly this will be an image.

Other file types will be added in the future, including audio, video, and 3-D scan.
Representation ID Every image has its own unique ID.

 

When you're ready, click on "Bayer-1661" in the Source ID field. We will resume the tour on the Bayer source page.