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Description

Dopplemayr's Gnomonic Project of the Fixed Stars.

This is the first chart in a series of six depicting part of the night sky on a gnomonic projection with 'the fixed stars for the end of the year of Christ 1730 'according to the rules of arithmetic and geometry.'

The constellations are shown as figures according to classical mythology and the zodiac as derived from Hevelius. The more recently named constellations are shown as scientific instruments. The paths of several comets are traced following a pattern established by Pardies. Specifically, this chart is an internal view of the sky centered on the equator focusing on the constellations Ursa Major, Camelopardius, Lynx S. Tigris, Cassiopea, Cepheus, Draco, and Ursa Minor.

Doppelmayr wrote on astronomy, geography, cartography, spherical trigonometry, sundials and mathematical instruments. He collaborated with the cartographer Johann Baptista Homann (1664-1724), a former Dominican monk from Oberkammlach in Schwabia who in 1688 had settled in Nuremberg and became a map engraver for the publishing firms of Jacob von Sandrart and David Funck.