Urania's Mirror

Card 32 illustrates twelve constellations: nine modern ones (Corvus, Crater, Sextans [here Sextans Uraniæ], Hydra, Lupus, Centaurus, Antlia [here Antlia Pneumatica], and Pyxis [here Pyxis Nautica]), the now-subdivided Argo Navis, and the former constellations Noctua and Felis.

Urania's Mirror; or, a view of the Heavens is a set of 32 astronomical star chart cards, first published in November 1824.[1][2] They are illustrations based on Alexander Jamieson's A Celestial Atlas,[2] but the addition of holes punched in them allow them to be held up to a light to see a depiction of the constellation's stars.[1] They were engraved by Sidney Hall, and were said to be designed by "a lady", but have since been identified as the work of the Reverend Richard Rouse Bloxam, an assistant master at Rugby School.[3]

The cover of the box-set depicts Urania, the muse of astronomy. It originally came with a book entitled A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy... written as an accompaniment.[2][4] Peter Hingley, the researcher who solved the mystery of who designed the cards a hundred and seventy years after their publication, considered them amongst the most attractive star chart cards of the many produced in the early 19th century.

  1. ^ a b "Advertisement". Monthly Critical Gazette. London: Sherwood, Jones, and Co. December 1824. p. 578. See also File:Advertisement for Urania's Mirror.png.
  2. ^ a b c Ridpath, Ian. "Urania's Mirror". Ian Ridpath's Antique Star Atlases. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
  3. ^ Hingley, P. D. (1994). "Urania's Mirror — A 170-year old mystery solved?". Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 104 (5): 238–40. Bibcode:1994JBAA..104..238H. p. 239
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hingley238 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).