Sources in Preparation

The Sky Tonight website features high quality images of the constellations taken from historical sources, courtesy (at launch) of the History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries, and prepared by website curators Kerry Magruder, Brent Purkaple and Aja Tolman. "Sources" as used here are the original publications from which the high resolution images available on this site were taken. Contributing libraries, repositories and curators provide high quality digitized source images in the public domain or distributed under a Creative Commons license. Sources currently in preparation (by The Sky Tonight curators unless otherwise noted):

Ancient Sources

• Abu Ma’shar, Introductorium in astronomiam (Augsburg, 1489). 
• Aratos, Phenomena ("Appearances of the Sky"; Basel, 1547).
• Hesiod, Opera (Frankfurt, 1559).
• Ptolemy, Opera ("Collected Works"; Basel, 1541); figures drawn after Albrect Dürer
• Hyginus, Poeticon astronomicon ("Astronomical Poem"; Venice, 1485).

Early Modern Sources

• Alessandro Piccolomini, De le Stelle Fisse ("On the Fixed Stars"; Venice, 1540).
• Tycho Brahe, Opera omnia ("Collected Works"; Frankfurt, 1648).
• Giovanni Paolo Gallucci, Theatrum mundi ("Theater of the World"; Venice, 1588).
• William Schickard, Astroscopium (Stuttgart,1628).
• Johann Bayer, Uranometria ("Measuring the Heavens"; Ulm, 1661; 1st ed. 1603), bound with Johann Bayer, Explicatio characterum (Ulm, 1697).
  • Johann Kepler, De stella nova in pede serpentarii ("On the New Star in the Foot of the Serpent Handler"; Prague, 1606).
• Galileo, Sidereus nuncius ("Starry Messenger"; Venice, 1610).
• Controversy over the comets of 1618:
  • Oratio Grassi, De tribus cometis anni MDCXVIII (Rome, 1619).
  • John Bainbridge, An astronomicall description (London, 1619).
• Stanislaw Lubieniecki, Theatrum cometicum ("Theater of Comets"; Amsterdam, 1666-68).
• Geminiano Montanari, Prose de’ Signori Accademici Gelati ("Essays of the Members of the Academy of Gelati"; Bologna, 1671).
• Edmond Halley, Catalogus stellarum australium (London, 1679).
• Johann and Elisabeth Hevelius, Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia ("The Firmament of King Sobiesci, or Map of the Heavens"; Gdansk, 1690).  Bound with their Prodromus Astronomiae ("Preliminary discourse to Astronomy"; Gdansk, 1690) and Catalogus stellarum fixarum ("Catalog of Fixed Stars"; Gdansk, 1687).
• Vincenzo Coronelli, Celestial Globe Gores (Paris, 1693; reprint ca. 1800).
• Vincenzo Coronelli, Epitome Cosmografica (Cologne, 1693).
• John Flamsteed, Atlas coelestis ("Celestial Atlas"; London, 1729).
  • John Flamsteed, Atlas Celeste ("Celestial Atlas"; Paris, 1776), ed. J. Fortin.
  • Johann Bode, Vorstellung der Gestirne ("Atlas of the Stars"; Berlin, 1782).
• Nicolas Lacaille, “Planisphere contenant les Constellations Celestes,” Memoires Academie Royale des Sciences pour 1752 ("A Planisphere Containing the Celestial Constellations"; Paris, 1756).
• Charles Messier, “Catalogue des Nébuleuses et des Amas d’Étoiles,” Memoires Academie Royale des Sciences pour 1771 ("Catalog of Nebula and of Star Clusters"; Paris, 1774), pp. 435ff.
• Johann Bode, Uranographia ("Map of the Heavens"; Berlin, 1801).

19th-century Sources

• Catherine Whitwell, An Astronomical Catechism (London, 1818).
• Urania’s Mirror (London 1825), a boxed set of 32 cards.
• Joseph J. von Littrow, Atlas des Gestirnten Himmels ("Atlas of the Starry Heavens"; Stuttgart, 1839).
• Otto Boeddicker, The Milky Way... drawn at the Earl of Rosse’s Observatory at Birr Castle (London, 1892).

Asian constellations

• Baba, Nobutake, Shogaku tenmon shinansho ("Introduction to Astronomy"; Osaka, 1706).
• John Williams, Observations of Comets from B.C. 611 to A.D. 1640, Extracted from the Chinese Annals (London, 1871).

Egyptian or Hieroglyphic constellations

• Sébastien-Louis Saulnier, Notice sur le voyage de M. Lelorrain en Égypte (Paris, 1822).

Hebrew or Kabbalah constellations

• Jacques Gaffarel, Unheard-of Curiosities: Concerning the Talismanical Sculpture of the Persians, the Horoscope of the Patriakes, and the Reading of the Stars (London, 1650).

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More will be added to this site as time permits.