Star Maps captures the beauty and awe of the heavens through celestial prints and star atlases. It traces the history of celestial cartography and relates this history to the changing ideas of humanity's place in the universe. The text of this Second Edition is enriched with 263 photographs, 91 in color, showing images from actual antiquarian celestial books and atlases, each one with an explanation of its astronomical and cartographic features.

This new edition of Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography includes:

• over 50 new pages of text and 44 new images (16 in color) - completely new sections on celestial frontispieces, deep-sky objects, playing card maps, additional cartographers, and modern computerized star maps - updated figures and text about celestial globes, volvelles, telescopes, and planets and asteroids - revised and updated text and illustrations throughout.

The book focuses on the development of celestial cartography from ancient to modern times and describes the relationships between different star maps and atlases. It demonstrates contemporary cosmological ideas, constellation representations, and cartographic advances. Uniquely, it contains material on early American influences and non-European constellation representations. This book is a must-have reference for anyone interested in the workings of the heavens.

Autorentext

Dr. Nick Kanas is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco. He has been collecting antiquarian star maps for over 30 years. He is a member of several map collector societies and has lectured on the history of celestial cartography at scientific and non-scientific meetings of organizations such as the Adler Planetarium, the Lick Observatory, and the Sydney (Australia) Observatory, and annual meetings of the International Conference on the History of Cartography, the Society for the History of Astronomy, the Flamsteed Astronomical Society in Greenwich, U.K. and the California Map Society. He has written articles on this subject for a number of journals and magazines including 'Sky & Telescope' and the 'Journal of the International Map Collector's Society.'

Nick is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (London). The first edition of his title 'Star Maps' (Springer, 2007) was well-reviewed and went through two printings. He continuesto write and lecture on antiquarian star maps for various groups, including professional conferences and meetings of amateur astronomers and map collectors.

Zusammenfassung

Until the publication of the first edition of 'Star Maps,' books were either general histories of astronomy using examples of antiquarian celestial maps as illustrations, or catalogs of celestial atlases that failed to trace the flow of sky map development over time.

The second edition focuses on the development of contemporary views of the heavens and advances in map-making. It captures the beauty and awe of the heavens through images from antiquarian celestial prints and star atlases. This book uniquely combines a number of features: 1) the history of celestial cartography is traced from ancient to modern times; 2) this development is integrated with contemporary cosmological systems; 3) the artistry of sky maps is shown using beautiful color images from actual celestial atlases and prints; 4) each illustration is accompanied by a legend explaining what is being shown; and 5) the text is written for the lay reader based on the author's experience with writing articlesfor amateur astronomy and map collector magazines.

This updated second edition of 'Star Maps' contains over 50 new pages of text and 44 new images (16 in color), including completely new sections on celestial frontispieces, deep-sky objects, playing card maps, additional cartographers, and modern computerized star maps. There is also expanded material about celestial globes, volvelles, telescopes, and planets and asteroids.

Inhalt

Prefac to Second Edition.- Foreword to First Edition.- Preface to First Edition.- Acknowledgments.- List of Figures.- List of Tables.- List of abbreviations and acronyms.- Chapter 1: What is a star map?.- Chapter 2: Non-European cosmology and constellation development.- Chapter 3: European Cosmology.- Chapter 4: European constellation development.- Chapter 5: Early European star maps.- Chapter 6: The "Big Four" of the Golden Age of pictorial star maps.- Chapter 7: Other important star maps of the Golden Age.- Chapter 8: Special topics.- Chapter 9: Mapping the stars in early America.- Chapter 10: The transition to non-pictorial star maps.- Chapter 11: Color Plate Gallery.- Appendices.- Appendix A: Collecting celestial maps and prints.- Appendix B: Supplementary reference catalog.- Appendix C: Indices of major constellation atlases.- Appendix D: The British Library "Kings's" edition.- Appendix E: Glossary.- Index.