astronomical map

Introduction

      any cartographic representation of the stars, galaxies, or surfaces of the planets and the Moon. Modern maps of this kind are based on a coordinate system analagous to geographic latitude and longitude. In most cases, modern maps (map) are compiled from photographic observations made either with Earth-based equipment or with instruments carried aboard spacecraft.

Nature and significance

      The brighter stars and star groupings are easily recognized by a practiced observer. The much more numerous fainter celestial bodies can be located and identified only with the help of astronomical (astronomy) maps, catalogs, and in some cases almanacs.

      The first astronomical charts, globes (celestial globe), and drawings, often decorated with fantastic figures, depicted the constellations (constellation), recognizable groupings of bright stars known by imaginatively chosen names that have been for many centuries both a delight to man and a dependable aid to navigation. Several royal Egyptian tombs of the 2nd millennium BC include paintings of constellation figures, but these cannot be considered accurate maps. Classical Greek astronomers used maps and globes; unfortunately, no examples survive. Numerous small metal celestial globes from Islāmic makers of the 11th century onward remain. The first printed planispheres (representations of the celestial sphere on a flat surface) were produced in 1515, and printed celestial globes appeared at about the same time.

      Telescopic astronomy began in 1609, and by the end of the 17th century the telescope was applied in mapping the stars. In the latter part of the 19th century, photography gave a powerful impetus to precise chart making, culminating in the 1950s in the publication of National Geographic Society–Palomar Observatory Sky Survey, a portrayal of the part of the sky visible from Palomar Observatory in California.

      Many modern maps used by amateur and professional observers of the sky show stars, dark nebulas of obscuring dust, and bright nebulas (masses of tenuous, glowing matter). Specialized maps show sources of radio radiation, sources of infrared radiation, and quasi-stellar objects having very large redshifts (the spectral lines are displaced toward longer wavelengths) and very small images. Astronomers of the 20th century have divided the entire sky into 88 areas, or constellations; this international system codifies the naming of stars and star patterns that began in prehistoric times. Originally only the brightest stars and most conspicuous patterns were given names, probably based on the actual appearance of the configurations. Beginning in the 16th century, navigators and astronomers have progressively filled in all the areas left undesignated by the ancients.

The celestial sphere (celestial sphere)

      To any observer, ancient or modern, the night sky appears as a hemisphere resting on the horizon. Consequently, the simplest descriptions of the star patterns and of the motions of heavenly bodies are those presented on the surface of a sphere.

      The daily eastward rotation of the Earth on its axis produces an apparent diurnal westward rotation of the starry sphere. Thus, the stars seem to rotate about a northern or southern celestial pole, the projection into space of the Earth's own poles. Equidistant from the two poles is the celestial equator; this great circle is the projection into space of the Earth's Equator.

   Figure 1—> illustrates the celestial sphere as viewed from some middle northern latitude. Part of the sky adjacent to a celestial pole is always visible (the shaded area in the diagram), and an equal area about the opposite pole is always invisible below the horizon; the rest of the celestial sphere appears to rise and set each day. For any other latitude the particular part of sky visible or invisible will be different and the diagram must be redrawn. An observer situated at the Earth's North Pole could observe only the stars of the northern celestial hemisphere. An observer at the Equator, however, would be able to see the entire celestial sphere as the daily motion of the Earth carried him around.

      In addition to their apparent daily motion around the Earth, the Sun, Moon, and planets of the solar system have their own motions with respect to the starry sphere. Since the Sun's brilliance obscures the background stars from view, it took many centuries before observers discovered the precise path of the Sun through the constellations that are now called the signs of the zodiac. The great circle of the zodiac traced out by the Sun on its annual circuit is the ecliptic (so called because eclipses can occur when the Moon crosses it).

 As viewed from space, the Earth slowly revolves about the Sun in a fixed plane, the ecliptic plane. A line perpendicular to this plane defines the ecliptic pole, and it makes no difference whether this line is projected into space from the Earth or from the Sun. All that is important is the direction, because the sky is so far away that the ecliptic pole must fall on a unique point on the celestial sphere (Figure 2—>).

      The principal planets (planet) in the solar system revolve about the Sun in nearly the same plane as the Earth's orbit, and their movements will therefore be projected onto the celestial sphere nearly, but seldom exactly, on the ecliptic. The Moon's (Moon) orbit is tilted by about five degrees from this plane, and hence its position in the sky deviates from the ecliptic more than those of the other planets.

      Because the blinding sunlight blocks some stars from view, the particular constellations that can be seen depend on the position of the Earth in its orbit—i.e., on the apparent place of the Sun. The stars visible at midnight will shift westward by about one degree each successive midnight as the Sun progresses in its apparent eastward motion. Stars visible at midnight in September will be concealed by the dazzling noontime Sun 180 days later in March.

      Why the ecliptic and celestial equator meet at an angle of 23° 26.6′ is an unexplained mystery originating in the past history of Earth. The angle gradually varies by small amounts as a result of Moon- and planet-caused gravitational perturbations on the Earth. The ecliptic plane is comparatively stable, but the equatorial plane is continually shifting as the Earth's axis of rotation changes its direction in space. The successive positions of the celestial poles trace out large circles on the sky with a period of about 26,000 years. This phenomenon, known as precession of the equinoxes (equinoxes, precession of the), causes a series of different stars to become pole stars (polestar) in turn. Polaris, the present pole star, will come nearest to the north celestial pole around the year AD 2100. At the time the pyramids were built, Thuban in the constellation Draco served as the pole star, and in about 12,000 years the first-magnitude star Vega will be near the north celestial pole. Precession also makes the coordinate systems on precise star maps applicable only for a specific epoch.

Celestial coordinate systems

The horizon system

      The simple altazimuth system, which depends on a particular place, specifies positions by altitude (the angular elevation from the horizon plane) and azimuth (the angle clockwise around the horizon, usually starting from the north). Lines of equal altitude around the sky are called almucantars (almucantar). The horizon system is fundamental in navigation (celestial navigation), as well as in terrestrial surveying. For mapping the stars, however, coordinates fixed with respect to the celestial sphere itself (such as the ecliptic or equatorial systems) are far more suitable.

The ecliptic system

      Celestial longitude and latitude are defined with respect to the ecliptic and ecliptic poles. Celestial longitude is measured eastward from the ascending intersection of the ecliptic with the equator, a position known as the “first point of Aries,” and the place of the Sun at the time of the vernal equinox around March 21. The first point of Aries is symbolized by the ram's horns (♈).

      Unlike the celestial equator, the ecliptic is fixed among the stars; however, the ecliptic longitude of a given star increases by 1.396° per century owing to the precessional movement of the equator—similar to the precessional movement of a child's top—which shifts the first point of Aries. The first 30 degrees along the ecliptic is nominally designated as the sign Aries, although this part of the ecliptic has now moved forward into the constellation Pisces. Ecliptic coordinates predominated in Western astronomy until the Renaissance. (In contrast, Chinese astronomers always used an equatorial system.) With the advent of national nautical almanacs, the equatorial system, which is better suited to observation and navigation, gained ascendancy.

The equatorial system

 Based on the celestial equator and poles, the equatorial coordinates, right ascension and declination, are directly analogous to terrestrial longitude and latitude (Figure 3—>). Right ascension, measured eastward from the first point of Aries (see directly above), is customarily divided into 24 hours rather than 360°, thus emphasizing the clocklike behaviour of the sphere. Precise equatorial positions must be specified for a particular year, since the precessional motion continually changes the measured coordinates.

Galactic coordinates (galactic coordinate)

      For problems relating to the structure of the Galaxy, astronomers have introduced the galactic equator, a great circle girdling the sky and centred in the Milky Way. Galactic longitude is measured from a specified location in Sagittarius in the direction of the nucleus of the Galaxy and is taken as positive in a direction obliquely northward in the sky (increasing declination). Galactic latitude is measured from the galactic equator and is positive toward the north galactic pole in Coma Berenices.

The constellations and other sky divisions

      Recognition of the constellations can be traced to early civilization. The oldest astronomical cuneiform texts, from the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, record the Sumerian names of the constellations still known as the lion, the bull, and the scorpion. Drawings of these astronomical animals appear on Babylonian (Babylonia) boundary stones of the same period, and the earlier occurrence of these motifs on prehistoric seals, Sumerian vases, and gaming boards suggests that they may have originated as early as 4000 BC. In China a handful of configurations show similarity to those of the West, including the scorpion, lion, hunter (Orion), and northern dipper, suggesting the possibility of a very old common tradition for a few groups, but, otherwise, almost complete independence.

      Greek literature reflects the impact of the stars on the life of an agricultural and seafaring people. Homer (c. 9th century BC) records several constellations by the names used today, and the first mention of circumpolar stars is in the Odyssey. Odysseus is

Gazing with fixed eye on the Pleiades,

Boötes setting late and the Great Bear,

By others called the Wain, which wheeling round,

Looks ever toward Orion and alone

Dips not into the waters of the deep.

Odyssey, V

      In England the Great Bear ( Ursa Major), or Big Dipper, was still called Charles's Wain (or Wagon) in Shakespeare's day:

An't be not four by

The day I'll be hanged; Charles' Wain is over

The new chimney and yet our horse not pack'd.

King Henry IV, Part I, Act ii, Scene 1

      This form derives from Charlemagne, and according to The Oxford English Dictionary, apparently from a verbal association of the name of the bright nearby Arcturus with Arturus, or Arthur, and the legendary association of Arthur and Charlemagne.

      The earliest systematic account of the constellations is contained in the Phaenomena of Aratus, a poet of the 3rd century BC, who described 43 constellations and named five individual stars. Cicero recorded that

The first Hellenic globe of the sky was made by Thales of Miletus, having fallen into a ditch or well while star-gazing. Afterwards Eudoxos of Cnidus (Eudoxus of Cnidus) traced on its surface the stars that appear in the sky; and . . . many years after, borrowing from Eudoxos this beautiful design and representation, Aratos had illustrated it in his verses, not by any science of astronomy, but by the ornament of poetical description.

De republica, I, 14

      By far the most important list of stars and constellations still extant from antiquity appears in the Almagest of Ptolemy (flourished 2nd century AD). It contains ecliptic coordinates and magnitudes (measures of brightness) for 1,022 stars, grouped into 48 constellations. Numerous writers have stated that Ptolemy simply borrowed his material from a now-lost catalog of Hipparchus compiled in 129 BC. A critical analysis of the Hipparchian fragments still extant, including his commentary on the Phaenomena of Aratus, indicates that (1) the catalog of Hipparchus did not include more than 850 stars and (2) Ptolemy most likely obtained new coordinates for even those 850 stars. The evidence suggests that Ptolemy, who for over a century has been considered a mere compilator, should be placed among the first-rank astronomical observers of all ages.

      Nevertheless, Ptolemy's star list presents a curious puzzle. The southernmost heavens, invisible at the latitude of Alexandria, naturally went unobserved. On one side of the sky near this southern horizon, he tabulated the bright stars of the Southern Cross (although not as a separate constellation) and of Centaurus, but on the opposite side a large area including the first-magnitude star Achernar had been left unrecorded. Because of precession, before 2000 BC this region would have been invisible from Mesopotamia. Perhaps neither Hipparchus nor Ptolemy considered that part of the heavens unnamed by their ancient predecessors. Ptolemy's catalog of 1,022 stars remained authoritative until the Renaissance.

      Ptolemy divided his stars into six brightness, or magnitude, classes. He listed 15 bright stars of the first magnitude but comparatively few of the faint, much more numerous but barely visible sixth magnitude at the other limit of his list. Aṣ-Ṣūfī, a 10th-century Islāmic astronomer carried out the principal revision made to these magnitudes during the Middle Ages. Ulugh Beg (Ulūgh Beg), grandson of the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane, is the only known Oriental astronomer to reobserve the positions of Ptolemy's stars. His catalog, put together in 1420–37, was not printed until 1665, by which time it had already been surpassed by European observations.

Constellations of the zodiac

      The Mesopotamian arrangement of constellations has survived to the present day because it became the basis of a numerical reference scheme—the ecliptic, or zodiacal, system. This occurred around 450 BC, when the ecliptic was clearly recognized and divided into 12 equal signs of the zodiac. Most modern scholars take the zodiac as a Babylonian invention; the oldest record of the zodiacal signs as such is a cuneiform horoscope from 419 BC. However, as Greek sources attribute the discovery of the ecliptic to Oenopides in the latter part of the 5th century BC, a parallel development in both Greece and Babylon should not be excluded.

      At the time the zodiac was established, it was probably necessary to invent at least one new constellation, Libra. Centuries later Ptolemy's Almagest still described the stars of Libra with respect to the ancient figure of the scorpion.

The decans

      Two other astronomical reference systems developed independently in early antiquity, the lunar mansions and the Egyptian (Egypt, ancient) decans. The decans are 36 star configurations circling the sky somewhat to the south of the ecliptic. They make their appearance in drawings and texts inside coffin lids of the 10th dynasty (around 2100 BC) and are shown on the tomb ceilings of Seti I (1318–04 BC) and of some of the Rameses in Thebes. The decans appear to have provided the basis for the division of the day into 24 hours.

      Besides representing star configurations as decans, the Egyptians marked out about 25 constellations, such as crocodile, hippopotamus, lion, and a falcon-headed god. Their constellations can be divided into northern and southern groups, but the various representations are so discordant that only three constellations have been identified with certainty: Orion (depicted as Osiris), Sirius (a recumbent cow), and Ursa Major (foreleg or front part of a bull). The most famous Egyptian star map is a 1st-century-BC stone chart found in the temple at Dandarah and now in the Louvre. The Zodiac of Dandarah illustrates the Egyptian decans and constellations, but since it incorporates the Babylonian zodiac as well, many stars must be doubly represented, and the stone can hardly be considered an accurate mapping of the heavens.

Lunar mansions

      Called hsiu in China and nakṣhatra in India, the lunar mansions are 28 divisions of the sky presumably selected as approximate “Moon stations” on successive nights. At least four quadrantal hsiu that divided the sky into quarters or quadrants were known in China in the 14th century BC, and 23 are mentioned in the Yüeh Ling, which may go back to 850 BC. In India a complete list of nakṣhatra are found in the Atharvaveda, providing evidence that the system was organized before 800 BC. The system of lunar mansions, however, may have a common origin even earlier in Mesopotamia.

Relationship of the bright stars and their constellations

      Ancient peoples sometimes named individual bright stars rather than groups; sometimes the name of the group and its brightest star were synonymous—as in the case of the constellation Aquila and the star Altair (Alpha Aquilae), both names meaning “flying eagles”—or were used interchangeably as in the case of both the star Arcturus (Alpha Boötis, “bear watcher”) and the constellation Boötes (“plowman”). In the star list of the Almagest, Ptolemy cites only about a dozen stars by name, describing the others by their positions within the constellation figures. Most star names in current use have Arabic forms, but these are usually simply translations of Ptolemy's descriptions; for example, Deneb, the name of the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus (Swan), means literally “tail” of the bird.

      Ptolemy's placement of the stars within apparently well-known figures indicates the earlier existence of star maps, probably globes. An example survives in the so-called Farnese Globe at Naples, the most famous astronomical artifact of antiquity. This huge marble globe, supported by a statue of Atlas, is generally considered to be a Roman copy of an earlier Greek original. It shows constellation figures but not individual stars, although the stars may have been painted on the stone.

      A unique hemispherical celestial map, which furnishes a remarkable connecting link between the classical representation of the constellations and the later Islāmic forms, is painted in the dome of a bath house at Quṣayr ʿAmra, an Arab palace built in Jordan around AD 715. The surviving fragments of the fresco show parts of 37 constellations and about 400 stars.

      Circumstantial evidence suggests that a flat representation of the sky, in the form of a planisphere using a stereographic projection, had come into use by the beginning of the present era. This provided the basis for the astrolabe, the earliest remaining examples of which date from the 9th century AD. The open metalwork of the top moving plate (called a spider or rete) of an astrolabe is essentially a star map, and these instruments together with associated manuscript lists provide the basic documentation for Arabic star names.

 If astrolabes are excluded, the oldest existing portable star map from any civilization is the Chinese Tunhuang manuscript in the British Museum, dating from about AD 940 (Figure 4—>). A Latin document of about the same age, also in the British Museum, shows a planisphere to illustrate the Phainomena of Aratus, without, however, indicating individual stars. The oldest illuminated Islāmic astronomical manuscript, an AD 1009–10 copy of aṣ-Ṣūfī's book on the fixed stars, shows individual constellations, including stars.

      The earliest known western maps of the skies of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres with both stars and constellation figures date from 1440; preserved in Vienna, they may have been based on two now-lost charts from 1425 once owned by the German astronomer and mathematician Regiomontanus. In 1515 the noted German painter Albrecht Dürer (Dürer, Albrecht) drew the first printed star maps, a pair of beautiful planispheres closely patterned on the Vienna manuscripts. Dürer and his collaborators numbered the stars on the charts according to the order in Ptolemy's list, a nomenclature that gained limited currency in the 16th century. The first book of printed star charts, De le stelle fisse (1540) of the Italian Alessandro Piccolomini, introduced a lettering system for the stars; although frequently reprinted, application of its nomenclature did not spread.

New constellations: 16th–20th centuries

      Star charts contained only the 48 constellations tabulated by Ptolemy until the end of the 16th century. Then Pieter Dircksz Keyser, a navigator who joined the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies in 1595, added 12 new constellations in the southern skies, named in part after exotic birds such as the toucan, peacock, and phoenix.

      The southern constellations were introduced in 1601 on a celestial globe by J. Hondius and in 1603 on the globe of Willem Blaeu and on a single plate in the Uranometria of Johann Bayer (Bayer, Johann). The Uranometria, the first serious star atlas, has a plate for each of the 48 traditional figures. Its scientific integrity rests on Tycho Brahe's newly determined stellar positions and magnitudes (see below Modern star maps and catalogs (astronomical map)).

      In his Uranographia of 1687, the German astronomer Johannes Hevelius (Hevelius, Johannes) devised seven new constellations visible from mid-northern latitudes that are still accepted, including Sextans (the sextant), named for one of his own astronomical instruments. Fourteen additional southern constellations were formed by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (Lacaille, Nicolas Louis de) after his visit to the Cape of Good Hope in 1750. They appeared in the Memoires of the Académie Royale des Sciences for 1752 (published in 1756). All other attempts to invent constellations have failed to win acceptance.

 The classic atlases of Bayer and Hevelius as well as John Flamsteed's Atlas Coelestis (1729) showed only the brighter naked-eye stars. Johann Elert Bode's (Bode, Johann Elert) Uranographia of 1801 was the first reasonably complete depiction of the stars visible to the unaided eye. It included an early use of constellation boundaries, a concept accepted and refined by 19th-century cartographers (Figure 5—>). Friedrich W.A. Argelander's Uranometria Nova (1843) and Benjamin A. Gould's (Gould, Benjamin Apthorp) Uranometria Argentina (1877–79) standardized the list of constellations as they are known today. They divided Ptolemy's largest constellation, Argo Navis (the ship), into four parts: Vela (the sail), Pyxis (the compass), Puppis (the stern), and Carina (the keel).

       ConstellationsThe definitive list of 88 constellations was established in 1930 under the authority of the International Astronomical Union (see Table (Constellations)). Its rectilinear constellation boundaries preserve the traditional arrangements of the naked-eye stars. The smallest of the constellations, Equuleus (“the Little Horse”) and Crux (“the [Southern] Cross”), nestle against constellations that are more than 10 times larger, Pegasus and Centaurus, respectively. The standard boundaries define an unambiguous constellation for each star.

Star names and designations

      Of approximately 5,000 stars visible to the unaided eye, only a few hundred have proper names, and less than 60 are commonly used by navigators or astronomers. A few names come almost directly from the Greek, such as Procyon, Canopus, and Antares—the latter derived from “anti-Ares” or “rival of Mars” because of its conspicuous red colour. The stars Sirius (“Scorcher”) and Arcturus (“Bear Watcher”) are mentioned both by Homer and Hesiod (8th century BC?). Aratus names those two as well as Procyon (“Forerunner of the Dog”), Stachys (“Ear of Corn”?, now Spica), and Protrugater (“Herald of the Vintage,” now Latinized to Vindemiatrix).

      The Al that begins numerous star names indicates their Arabic origin, al being the Arabic definite article “the”: Aldebaran (“the Follower”), Algenib (“the Side”), Alhague (“the Serpent Bearer”), and Algol (“the Demon”). A conspicuous exception is Albireo in Cygnus, possibly a corruption of the words ab ireo in the first Latin edition of the Almagest in 1515. Most star names are in fact Arabic and are frequently derived from translations of the Greek descriptions. The stars of Orion illustrate the various derivations: Rigel, from rijl al-Jawzah, “Leg of Orion,” Mintaka, the “Belt,” and Saiph, the “Sword,” all follow the Ptolemaic figure; Betelgeuse, from yad al-Jawzah, is an alternative non-Ptolemaic description meaning “hand of Orion”; and Bellatrix, meaning “Female Warrior,” is either a free Latin translation of an independent Arabic title, an-najid, “the conqueror,” or is a modification of an alternative name for Orion himself. Only a handful of names have recent origins—for example, Cor Caroli, the brightest star in Canes Venatici, named in 1725 by Edmond Halley.

      Bayer's Uranometria of 1603 introduced a system of Greek letters for designating the principal naked-eye stars. In this scheme, the Greek letter is followed by the genitive form of the constellation name, so that alpha (α) of Canes Venatici is Alpha Canum Venaticorum. Bayer's letters and their extension to newer constellations apply to about 1,300 stars. In Historia Coelestis Britannica (published posthumously in 1725), Flamsteed (Flamsteed, John) numbered the stars within each of 54 constellations consecutively according to right ascension, and the Flamsteed numbers are customarily used for the fainter naked-eye stars such as 61 Cygni.

      An astronomer wishing to specify an even fainter star will usually take recourse to a more extensive or more specialized catalog. Such catalogs generally ignore constellations and list all stars by right ascension. Thus, astronomers learn to recognize that BD +38°3238 refers to a star in the Bonner Durchmusterung and that HD 172167 designates one in the Henry Draper Catalogue of spectral classifications; in this case, both numbers refer to the same bright star, Vega (Alpha Lyrae). Vega can also be specified as GC 25466, from Benjamin Boss's General Catalogue of 33,342 Stars (1937), or as ADS 11510, from Robert Grant Aitken's (Aitken, Robert Grant) New General Catalogue of Double Stars (1932). These are the most widely used numbering systems. For more obscure names, such as Ross 614 or Lalande 21185, most astronomers would have to consult a bibliographical aid to discover the original listing.

      Variable stars (variable star) have their own nomenclature, which takes precedence over designations from more specialized catalogs. Variable stars are named in order of discovery within each constellation by the letter R to Z (providing they do not already have a Greek letter). After Z the double from RR to RZ, SS to SZ, . . . is used; after ZZ come the letters AA to AZ, BB to BZ, and so on, the letter J being omitted. After the letters QX, QY, and QZ, the names V335, V336, and so on are assigned. Hence, the first lettered variable in Cygnus is R Cygni, and the list reached V1761 by the end of 1981. The names were assigned by the Soviet authors of the General Catalogue of Variable Stars (3rd edition, 1969), with the approval of the Commission on Variable Stars of the International Astronomical Union.

      Two catalogs are frequently used for designating star clusters, nebulas, or galaxies. The shorter list of these, which includes about 100 of the brighter objects, was compiled in three installments by the French astronomer Charles Messier (Messier, Charles) in the latter part of the 18th century; M1 and M31 are examples of this system, being, respectively, the Crab Nebula and the great galaxy in Andromeda. A much more extensive tabulation in order of right ascension is the New General Catalogue (NGC (New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars); 1890), followed by the Index Catalogue (IC; 1895, 1908); examples are NGC 7009 or IC 1613.

Modern star maps and catalogs

      Near the end of the 16th century, Tycho Brahe (Brahe, Tycho) of Denmark resolved to provide an observational basis for the renovation of astronomy. With his large and sturdy (but pre-telescopic) quadrants and sextants, he carefully measured the positions of 777 stars, to which he later added enough hastily observed stars to bring the catalog up to exactly 1,000. A comparable catalog of southern stars was not available until 1678, when the young Edmond Halley published positions of 350 stars measured during a British expedition to St. Helena.

      The first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, pioneered the use of telescopic sights for measuring stars' positions. His aforementioned Historia Coelestis Britannica listed 3,000 stars, exceeding all former catalogs in number and accuracy. These observations provided the basis for his great Atlas Coelestis. Measurements of the third Astronomer Royal, James Bradley, achieved a precision within a few seconds of arc; as reduced by the German astronomer Friedrich W. Bessel (Bessel, Friedrich Wilhelm) in 1818, his positions are the oldest still considered useful in modern astronomy.

Survey and zone maps and catalogs

      The German word Durchmusterung, literally a “scanning through,” was introduced by Argelander (Argelander, Friedrich Wilhelm August), who undertook to list all the stars visible in the eight-centimetre Bonn refractor. Keeping the telescope fixed, he recorded the stars, zone by zone, as the Earth's rotation carried the stars past the field of view. The resulting Bonner Durchmusterung (1859–62), or BD catalog (star catalog), contains 324,189 stars to about the ninth magnitude between declinations +90° and -2°. The accompanying charts, published in 1863, far surpassed all former maps in completeness and reliability. These maps are still of great value. The Bonn survey was extended to -23° in 1886, and at Córdoba, Arg., it was carried to the parallel of -62° by 1908, and to the South Pole by 1930. Because observing conditions changed over the many years required, the resulting Córdoba Durchmusterung, or CD, lacks the homogeneity of its northern counterpart.

      In 1867 Argelander proposed to the Astronomische Gesellschaft (German Astronomical Society) a massive project to document stellar positions with far greater precision. Although the observing of selected star positions with meridian circle telescopes had become well established by observers during the 18th and early 19th centuries, the new plan called for meridian observations of all stars down to the ninth magnitude. A score of observatories on four continents, each responsible for a specific zone of declination, cooperated to complete the catalog and its southern supplements. The northern sections, known as the AGK1, were published by zones; not until 1912 was the AGK1 complete to -18°.

      Meanwhile, in quite another way, the Dutch astronomer Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (Kapteyn, Jacobus Cornelius) completed an inventory of the southern sky by the measurement of the positions and magnitudes of about 454,000 stars from a set of photographic plates taken in Cape Town. Known as the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung (1896–1900), or CPD, the result covers the sky from declination -19° to the South Pole, down to the 11th magnitude.

      Beginning in 1924, the Astronomische Gesellschaft catalog was repeated photographically by the Bonn and Hamburg-Bergedorf observatories; published in 1951–58, the new catalog is called the AGK2. Neither the AGK1 nor the AGK2 provided information on proper motions (see star: Stellar motions (star)). Therefore, another set of photographic plates was obtained in Hamburg during the 1950s in order to obtain the motions; the resulting AGK3 was distributed on magnetic tape in 1969.

      In 1966 the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., issued a reference star catalog for use in finding artificial satellites from photographs. Although the SAO Star Catalog of 258,997 stars contains no new basic data, it does present the information in a particularly useful form. An accompanying computer-plotted atlas (1968), which includes more than 260,000 stars in addition to galaxies and nebulas, achieves an unprecedented accuracy for celestial cartography.

Fundamental catalogs

      The measurements of accurate places for vast numbers of stars rests on painstakingly and independently determined positions of a few selected stars. A list of positions and proper motions for such selected stars well distributed over the sky is called a fundamental catalog, and its coordinate system is a close approximation to a fixed frame of reference. When the German astronomers began the AGK2 in the 1920s, they first required a fundamental reference system that by the following decade was defined in the Dritter Fundamental-katalog des Berliner Astronomischen Jahrbuchs, or FK3. The Fourth Fundamental Catalogue (1963), or FK4, published by the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut in Heidelberg, contains data for 1,535 stars and has now superseded the FK3.

Photometric catalogs

      A complete mapping of the sky includes magnitudes (and colours) as well as positions and motions. The great survey catalogs furnished magnitude estimates, but since photometric procedures are quite different from astrometric ones, a separate family of photometric catalogs has developed. Visual observations provided the basis for major tabulations published at Oxford, Harvard, and Potsdam around the turn of the century, but these were soon superseded by photographic work. Studies of galactic structure, which required accurate magnitudes for at least some very faint stars as well as the bright ones, led to the establishment of the plan of 206 selected areas. These were well-defined areas of sky with stars of many representative kinds that could be used as standards of comparison, and the Mount Wilson Catalogue of Photographic Magnitudes in Selected Areas (1930), made about 20 years later, was for many years a leading reference for celestial photometry. Today several catalogs of photoelectric measurements in three or more colours set the standards for precision magnitudes.

      Another important quantity that can be measured is a star's spectral type (see star: Classification of spectral types (star)). One of the greatest collections of astronomical data is the Henry Draper Catalogue (1918–24), formed at Harvard by Annie Jump Cannon (Cannon, Annie Jump) and Edward Charles Pickering (Pickering, Edward Charles). The HD lists spectra of 225,300 stars distributed over the entire sky, and the Henry Draper Extension (1925–36, 1949) records 133,782 additional spectra.

Photographic star atlases

      Astronomical photography was scarcely past its infancy when an international conference in Paris in 1887 all too hastily resolved to construct a photographic atlas of the entire sky down to the 14th magnitude, the so-called Carte du ciel, and an associated Astrographic Catalogue, with measured star places down to the 12th magnitude. The original stimulus had come in 1882 with the construction of a 33-cm astrographic objective lens at Paris. For decades the immense Carte du Ciel enterprise sapped the energies of observatories around the world, especially in France, and even now is incomplete in the form originally planned. Nowadays such a program could be speedily completed with the use of computerized measuring instruments.

      The first photographic atlas of the entire sky (if a set of 55 glass plates offered by Harvard in 1903 be excepted) was initiated by an energetic British amateur. Issued in 1914, the (John) Franklin-Adams Charts comprise 206 prints with a limiting magnitude of 15.

      The monumental National Geographic Society–Palomar Observatory Sky Survey, released in 1954–58, reaches a limiting photographic magnitude of 21, far fainter than any other atlas. (The southernmost band has a slightly brighter limiting magnitude of 20.) Each field was photographed twice with a 124-cm Schmidt telescope at Mount Palomar to produce an atlas consisting of 935 pairs of prints made from the original blue-sensitive and red-sensitive plates, each about 6° square. The atlas proper extends to a declination of -33°, but 100 additional prints from red-sensitive plates now carry the coverage to -45°. Photographic mapping of the southern skies by the United Kingdom's 124-cm Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia and by the European Southern Observatory's 100-cm Schmidt at La Silla in Chile has penetrated to stars fainter than magnitude 22.

Atlases for stargazing

      Three modern atlases have gained special popularity among amateur and professional observers alike. Norton's Star Atlas, perfected through numerous editions, plots all naked-eye stars on eight convenient charts measuring 25 by 43 cm. The Tirion Sky Atlas 2000.0 (1981) includes some 43,000 stars to magnitude eight and is based primarily on the SAO Star Catalog. Its 26 charts, measuring 47 by 33 cm, include bright star names, boundaries of the Milky Way, and about 2,500 star clusters, nebulas, and galaxies. The companion to the Tirion Atlas—Sky Catalogue 2000.0 (1982, 1985)—summarizes the essential characteristics of 45,269 stars. The second volume of this work catalogs double stars, variable stars, and various kinds of nonstellar objects, including radio and X-ray sources. The German astronomer Hans Vehrenberg's Photographischer Stern-Atlas (1962–64), covering the entire sky in 464 sheets, each 12° square, has probably reached wider use than any other photographic atlas because of its quality and comparatively modest cost.

      There are several handbooks that serve as useful supplements to such atlases. Burnham's Celestial Handbook (1978) contains comprehensive descriptions of thousands of astronomical objects. The Observer's Handbook, published annually by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, lists valuable information for locating and observing a wide range of astronomical phenomena.

Owen Gingerich Warren Melvin Young

Additional Reading

Richard Hinckley Allen, Star-Names and Their Meanings (1899, reprinted as Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, 1963), a classic compendium; for a more trustworthy treatment of Arabic names, see Paul Kunitzsch, Arabische Sternnamen in Europa (1959). Deborah J. Warner, The Sky Explored: Celestial Cartography, 1500–1800 (1979), provides a historical overview. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth (1959); and Knut Lundmark, “Luminosities, Colours, Diameters, Densities, Masses of the Stars,” ch. 4 in Handbuch der Astrophysik, vol. 5 (1932–33), pp. 210–697 (with a sizable appendix), are both far more germane to astronomical maps than their titles imply. Information on types of star catalogs and classification systems may be found in “Star Catalogues,” ch. 6 in Ivan I. Mueller, Spherical and Practical Astronomy (1969). Practical catalogs and atlases include Dorrit Hoffleit, The Bright Star Catalogue, 4th rev. ed. (1982), with data compiled through 1979 (supplement published in 1983); Donald H. Menzel and Jay M. Pasachoff, A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets, 2nd ed., rev. and enl. (1983); and Ian Ridpath, Universe Guide to Stars and Planets (1985).Owen Gingerich Warren Melvin Young

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