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Description

Decorative map showing comparing and contrasting the Tychonic and Copernican models of the Solar System, as well as showing other celestial phenomena. This plate was produced by Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr in Nuremberg.

This interesting chart centers on a large sphere showing positions of the Sun, Moon, Venus, and Mercury (with Jupiter and Saturn much further out), displaying the Copernican model in which the Sun is at the center of the Solar System. Replacing the great asteroid belt is a scene of Diana (the lady of the Moon) observing the Earth through a telescope. In the upper left and right corners, simple diagrams explain the Tychonic model, in which the sun is purported to be orbiting the earth, but all other planets orbit the sun. By the time this book was published, the discovery of stellar aberration (apparent motion of the stars) by James Bradley had already been made, so this model is here likely included solely for completeness.

The lower left-hand corner shows a double hemisphere map of the earth, which includes California as an island. This is curiously entitled "the Old and New Worlds seen from the Moon." Additional scenes show the phases of the moon and the causes of eclipses. In all, an attractive celestial engraving.

This plate originally appeared in Doppelmayr's Atlas Coelestis, in quo mundus spectabilis. . ., a treaty on 18th-century astronomical knowledge.

Condition Description
Original hand-color. Minor dampstain in lower left margin.