Pièce GPP/3/4 - Annotated Celestial atlas: ‘Atlas céleste de Flamstéed'

1 box (1 volume and 1 folder)

2nd edition edited by M.J. Fortin (Paris : Deschamps, 1776). Bookplate of Yorkshire Philosophical Society, Accession No. 2241, Class No. 524.

SUMMARY AND EXTRACTS:
Note facing title page (in handwriting of Edward Pigott) to say that stars marked in red are taken from Bayer’s ‘Uranometria etc. Ulma Sumptibus Gorlini’ (1655) - he ‘had not time to examine the whole; the following were particularly attended to Viz Ursa Minor, Draco, Andromeda, Ursa Major, Ophiucus, Serpents, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Capricornus, Aquarius, Cetus, Eridanus, Sirius, Procyon’ – and green dots on the maps represent nebulae or star clusters, taken from the ‘Connaisance des temps’ of 1787. A handwritten table on the back of the first map : ‘Periodical Rotations of some of the Variable Stars’.

The charts are marked as described in the note above; also variables are marked, and positions of the comet observed in November to December 1783. On some maps there are pencilled notes, dated 1795-1807 and 1815, referring to magnitude of variables and to stars missing from Bayer’s catalogue.

The volume originally contains slips of paper bearing astronomical observations dated 1795-1815, referring chiefly to comparative magnitude of stars. These have been removed and placed in a separate folder, with their location marked. Between charts 29 and 30 ther was a dried pressed fungus or lichen, wrapped in a slip of paper marked ‘Fontainebleau’; another piece of dried plant material was pressed in the fold of chart 30. These have also been removed and placed in the folder.

Inside the back cover are notes, one dated 1784 giving right ascension and declination of stars in the Northern Crown, the other on the comparative magnitude of stars in Cassiopeia.

Summary and extracts have been provided by a volunteer.

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