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This magnificent atlas fused artistic beauty and scientific precision. Bode, director of the Observatory of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, produced the last of the four major celestial atlases in which artful depictions of constellation figures appear alongside the most up-to-date scientific data. 

20 large copperplate engravings plot more than 17,000 stars, far more than any previous atlas. Bode included new stars for the southern hemisphere, along with constellations recently invented by Hevelius and Lacaille. 

Bode depicted more than 100 constellations, compared with 88 officially recognized today. Some which appeared in this atlas for the first time, but are not officially recognized today, include the Cat, the Printing Press, the Montgolfier Balloon, and the Electric Generator. 

Bode also included 2,500 cloudy patches, or “nebula,” cataloged by William Herschel.

Bode included two planisphere plates.  They are not southern and northern hemispheres; each one has Polaris at the top and the south pole at the bottom.  Each one is centered upon an equinox point (where the ecliptic or path of the Sun and the celestial equator intersect).  The March equinox point was in Aries in antiquity; by Bode’s time, due to the precession of the equinoxes, it had shifted to Pisces.  The September equinox point was in Libra in antiquity; by Bode’s time it had shifted to Virgo.  Bode titled the plates as the Aries and Libra planispheres. Click the links below for more information on the planisphere plates.

Earlier, in 1782, Bode published a small-format atlas based on a Paris edition of Flamsteed.

The four great celestial atlases of Bayer, Hevelius, Flamsteed and Bode were each distinctive in their artistic style as well in their scientific importance. After Bode, this fusion of art and science in celestial atlases ceased, as scientific atlases no longer held room to include artistic constellation figures.

Key to the plates / sample constellation prominent on each plate:

1. Plate I: Aries hemisphere.
2. Plate II: Libri hemisphere.
3. Plate III: Draco.
4. Plate IV: Andromeda.
5. Plate V: Auriga.
6. Plate VI: Ursa Major.
7. Plate VII: Bootes.
8. Plate VIII: Cygnus.
9. Plate IX: Ophiuchus.
10. Plate X: Pegasus.
11. Plate XI: Aries.
12. Plate XII: Orion.
13. Plate XIII: Leo.
14. Plate XIV: Virgo.
15. Plate XV: Sagittarius.
16. Plate XVI: Aquarius.
17. Plate XVII: Cetus.
18. Plate XVIII: Canis Major.
19. Plate XIX: Hydra.

The title page makes an additional plate for a total of 20.

Greek writers like Hesiod and Aratos compiled ancient stories of the constellations, often in poetic form, with memorable instructions for locating bright stars and zodiac constellations. Constellations of the zodiac contain the wandering courses of the planets and the annual path of the Sun. Familiarity with the stars enabled one to coordinate the affairs of life, including agricultural cycles, with the sky at night.

Hyginus, a Roman poet, conveyed this body of practical knowledge into Latin. Hyginus followed the order and naming of the constellations as listed in the Almagest of Ptolemy (2d century C.E.). Charming constellation figures are hand-colored in this copy. It was printed by Erhard Ratdolt, a renowned early printer of works in astronomy and geometry.

Constellation figures, as in this boxed set of 32 constellation cards, make learning the constellation names memorable.  Each card illustrates one or a few constellations. Holes punched in the positions of bright stars allow one to hold any card up to a light and compare the star pattern with the constellation figure.  Urania, the Muse of Astronomy, appears on the cover of the box.   

The 66 constellations include several no longer recognized today. 

This is the first edition; subsequent editions include stars outside the boundaries of the featured constellations.

The creator of the cards remains a mystery.  In a companion book providing a simple introduction to the night sky, Jehoshaphat Aspin explains only that the constellation cards “were designed by a lady.”  (Jehoshaphat Aspin, A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy (London 1825), 2d ed.)

The constellation figures are based upon the Celestial Atlas of Alexander Jamieson, published in 1822. 

In this English contribution to the controversy on the comets of 1618, Bainbridge came to a similar conclusion as Oratio Grassi in Italy - that comets move through the heavens beyond the Moon.  

This book contains the first telescopic observations published in England and the first recorded use of the word “telescope” in English.  

In this work, Bainbridge also rejected the astrological significance of comets.  He later became the first Savilian Chair of Astronomy at Oxford.