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Henk Bril | profile | all galleries >> Astrohistorica (updated 2025) >> Star Atlases and Celestial Maps before 1900 (updated 2025) >> Goldbach 1799/1803 - updated 2025 tree view | thumbnails | slideshow

Bayer 1624 - 1661 | Fortin 1776 | Flamsteed 1781 | Bode 1782 | Fortin 1795 | Goldbach 1799/1803 - updated 2025 | Bode 1801 | Ciera/Villas-Boas 1804 | Bode 1805 | Rees (1807/1808) (new 2025) | Jamieson 1822 | Jamieson 1824 (updated 2025) | Archer 1833-1834 | Hoffmann 1835 | S.D.U.K. 1851

Goldbach 1799/1803 - updated 2025

I am the happy owner of several copper gravures with constellations from 1799 and/or 1803. These maps are from the "Neuester Himmels-Atlas" ("Latest Atlas of the Heavens") by Christian Friedrich Goldbach (1763-1811).
This first edition of 1799 had an unchanged reprint in 1803; according to the seller, map 9 and 14 are actually of this edition. I suspect the same for 7, 11, 21 and 24. Of the other three I don't know.

There are three aspects that make these maps interesting:
1. The maps show white stars on a black background.
2. The method of printing, the copper plates were printed in relief (with the ink on the surface), the other atlases are printed in intaglio (i.e. with the ink down in the engraved lines and the surface wiped clean).
3. The atlas not only has the maps shown with the constellations drawn on it, but also without. I only show the maps with the constellations.

I have added to the original plates (left side) also an inverted image (right side), in order to make the images easier to study.
This immediately shows how difficult this printing technique must have been, because the outlines are not so well defined and crisp compared to the atlases of Fortin, Ciera/Villas-Boas and Bode.

I RECOMMEND VIEWING THE MAPS IN THEIR ORIGINAL SIZE!

In 2013 Albireo-Verlag issued a beautiful facsimile of this Atlas!
https://albireo-verlag.org/product/neuester-himmels-atlas-1799-c-f-goldbach/
7 - Quadrant, Bootes, Jagdhunde, Haupthaar der Berenice
7 - Quadrant, Bootes, Jagdhunde, Haupthaar der Berenice
9 - Schlangenträger und Schlange
9 - Schlangenträger und Schlange
11 - Leyer, Schwan, Eidechse, Fuchs
11 - Leyer, Schwan, Eidechse, Fuchs
14 - Stier
14 - Stier
14 - Uranus in the bull
14 - Uranus in the bull
16 - Krebs
16 - Krebs
18 - Jungfrau
18 - Jungfrau
21 - Steinbock, Wassermann
21 - Steinbock, Wassermann
22 - Fische
22 - Fische
24 - Eridanus, Orion, Scepter, Hase
24 - Eridanus, Orion, Scepter, Hase