I am the happy owner of copper gravures with constellations from the 18th and early 19th Century.

These maps, most of them hand coloured, are from the atlases of Jean Fortin (1750-1831) "Atlas Céleste de Flamstéed, publié en 1776", edited by Joseph Jérome le Français de Lalande & Pierre Mechain, second edition, 1776, or third edition, 1795, or from the Portuguese version by Francisco Antonio Ciera and Gomes Villas-Boas, 1804, or from the atlases of Johann Elert Bode (1747-1826) "Vorstellung der Gestirne auf XXXIV Tafeln", 1782/1805. Furthermore I have some maps of the atlas of Christian Friedrich Goldbach (1763-1811) "Neuester Himmels-Atlas" (1799) and some maps of the "Celestial Atlas" (1822) of Alexander Jamieson. In 2013 I added three mysterious ones. Unmistakably based upon Fortin/Bode, unmistakably English - but also unmistakably unidentifiable.

I also own some maps with observations of Charles Messier on comets, published in the 'Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences'.

On July 13 (a Friday!), 2007 I bought volume 1 of the extremely rare Atlas of the Moon of Johann Nepomuk Krieger, published in 1898, to be followed on August 15, 2012 by volume 2 (actually called: Neue Folge - New Edition).

Click on one of the images to enter the sub gallery.