Stellar 2025

Welcome STELLAR educators and the NASA Educator Resource Center!

“Why did not somebody teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don’t half-know to this day?” — Thomas Carlyle

Old books offer us the opportunity to recover meaning in what we do. The night sky is filled with hundreds of stories which remind us that a knowledge of the heavens has always been part of what makes us human.

What memories do you have of watching the stars? What stories do you like to tell about the night sky?

Constellations

1. Cuneiform brick, Choga Zanbil (ca. 1300 BCE). (Foyer)
   • Bayer’s depiction of ancient constellations.
2. Camille Flammarion, L’Atmosphere (Paris, 1888). Flat-Earth woodcut.
   • Boldy go… leaflet.
   • Download images: original black and white (tiff, for coloring); colorized version (tiff) by Susanna Joy Magruder. Cf. Blog post.
   • Video presentation: Shape of the Earth.
   • Website archive: “This is not a medieval woodcut.”
3. Anonymous, Urania’s Mirror (London, 1824). Constellation cards. Distinguish star patterns from constellation figures.
   • Urania’s Mirror leaflet.
   • Urania’s Mirror constellation cards (for coloring or study).
   • Urania’s Mirror at Sky Tonight.
4. Friedrich Braun, Himmels Atlas in Transparenten Karten (1860). Constellation cards.
5. More on constellations:
   • Constellation sample leaflet: Orion.
   • Handout (PDF): Six Constellations.
   • Activity leaflet: Constellation tubes.
   • Constellations intro and activities.
6. Ptolemy, Almagest, in Opera (“Works”; Basel, 1541). Johann Honter drew constellation figures after the manner of Albrecht Dürer. At Sky Tonight.
7. Johann Bayer, Uranometria (“Measuring the Heavens”; Ulm, 1661), bound with Johann Bayer, Explicatio characterum (Ulm, 1697). 1st “Golden atlas.”
   • Bayer’s depiction of ancient constellations.
   • Bayer at Sky Tonight.
8. Johann Kepler, De stella nova in pede Serpentarii (Prague, 1606)
   • Kepler’s explanation of the Star of Bethlehem.
   • Kepler 1606 at Sky Tonight.
9. William Schickard, Astroscopium (1698).
   • Create your own astroscopium. Download templates: Plate 1 (tiff); Plate 2 (tiff).
   • Schickard at Sky Tonight.
10. Hevelius star atlas. 2nd “Golden Atlas.” Includes three books, usually published separately: (1) Uranographia, or Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia (“The Firmament of King Sobiesci, or Map of the Heavens”; Gdansk, 1690); bound with (2) Prodromus Astronomiae (“Preliminary Discourse for Astronomy”; Gdansk, 1690); bound with (3) Catalogus stellarum fixarum (“Catalog of the Fixed Stars”; Gdansk, 1687). Can you find the title pages and frontispieces for each of these three books?
    • Elisabeth Hevelius leaflet.
    • Hevelius atlas at Sky Tonight.
11. Vincenzo Coronelli, celestial globe gores (Paris, 1693; reprint ca. 1800).
    • Celestial globe leaflet.
    • Coronelli gores at Sky Tonight.
12. Johann Bode, Uranographia (“Map of the Heavens”; Berlin, 1801). 4th “Golden Atlas.”
    • Bode atlas leaflet.
    • Constellation sample leaflet: Coma Berenices.
    • PDF: Original plates (for coloring or study).
    • Bode at Sky Tonight.
13. Planisphere: Maier, Drehbar Sternkarte (c. 1890).
14. Catherine Whitwell, An Astronomical Catechism (London, 1818).
    • Whitwell at Sky Tonight.
15. Diurnal motion leaflet (background for telling time by the stars)
16. Planisphere leaflet.
17. Nocturnal Dial (star clock).
18. Zodiac constellations handout.
19. Why is your horoscope out of date?.
20. Middle Earth astronomy:
    • Blog post: Poem by Rachel Folmar.
    • Blog post: Explanation of poem.
21. Story: Hoot the Owl, by Anna Todd.
    • Download PDF: Hoot the Owl.
    • Blog post: Hoot the Owl Backstory.
22. Video presentation:
    • In a public presentation, Starstruck Tonight, Candace and I describe most of the astronomical works on display in this section, along with poetry and literature about the night sky.
23. The Sky Tonight:
    The images that fuse the beauty of modern deep space photos with historic star atlases may all be downloaded at my website skytonight.org. Information about each atlas is available under the “Sources” tab. Constellation images are found under the Constellations tab, etc.
24. Index for Chet Raymo, 365 Starry Nights, to quickly find the pages for any constellation.
25. Current free monthly printable star map with planets.

Music of the Spheres

1. Peter Apian, Cosmographicum (1540).
   • Apian: Cosmic section and lunar eclipse.
2. Aristarchos, De magnitudinibus et distantiis solis, et lunae (“On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon”; Pesaro, 1572).
3. Persian astrolabe, and Astrolabe replica.
4. Dante, Paradiso, illustrated by Gustave Doré. La Divina commedia (1883-1885), trans. Henry Cary.
5. Regiomontanus, Calendarium (Venice, 1476).
6. Copernicus, De revolutionibus (1543).
   • Video presentation: Copernicus life and works tour.
7. Leonard Digges, addition by Thomas Digges. Leonard Digges, A prognostication euerlasting of right good effect…; Lately corrected and augmented by Thomas Digges his sonne (London, 1605).
8. Johann Kepler, Mysterium cosmographicum (Tübingen, 1596).
   • Kepler, Blueprints of the Universe leaflet.
   • Pythagorean solids leaflet.
9. Vincenzo Galilei, Dialogo della mvsica antica, et della moderna (“Dialogue on Music, Ancient and Modern,” Florence, 1581).
10. Johann Kepler, Harmonices mundi (“Harmony of the Universe,” Linz, Austria, 1619).
    • Kepler, Harmony leaflet.
    • Music: Kepler suite, arranged for harp, flute and oboe, by Jonathan Annis (m4a). Short (2:25 mins). Original (10:13 mins).
    • Video presentation: Kepler life and works tour.
11. Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia universalis (Rome, 1650).
12. Andreas Cellarius, Harmonia macrocosmica seu atlas universalis (Amsterdam, 1708). First edition: Atlas Coelestis (Amsterdam, 1660/61). This 1708 edition includes the frontispiece and all of the plates of the 1660 edition.
13. Delamarche orrery (Paris).
14. “Einstein,” in Steve Jobs, Think Different (1998). Leaflet.
15. Background video: Many of these examples are discussed in the music section of my video lecture “Interdisciplinary Relations.”
16. Background: See the brief “Music of the Spheres” overview in Appendix 2 of my PDF essay on “George MacDonald and the Scientific Imagination.” (Blog post; direct link to essay PDF.)

Astronomy, Art, and Engineering

1. Galileo, Sidereus nuncius (Venice, 1610).
   • Optics activity.
   • The Sidereus at Sky Tonight.
   • A Book Mystery (Sidereus whodunnit).
2. Johann Hevelius, Selenographia (1647).
3. Leonardo da Vinci, in Luca Pacioli, De divina proportione (Venice, 1509).
4. Albrecht Dürer, Institutionum geometricarum (Paris, 1535).
5. Lorenzo Sirgatti, La Pratica di Prospettiva (Venice, 1596).
6. Jean François Niceron, La Perspectiva Curieuse (Paris, 1663).
   • Make your own Alberti box, from Niceron.
7. Art and astronomy video:
   • IEEE VIS 2022: Thinking Visually keynote.
8. Agostino Ramelli, Le diverse et artificiose machine (Paris, 1588).
9. Johann Schreck, “Marvelous Machines of the Far West.” First published in Beijing, 1630. Published as Ensei kiki zusetsu rokusai (Japan, 1830).
   • Johann Schreck, Galileo’s friend in China.

From Airpumps to Airships

1. Otto Von Guericke, Experimenta nova (1672).
2. Robert Boyle, Experiments touching the spring of the air (London, 1660).
3. Robert Hooke, Philosophical Collections (London, 1679); flying machine by Lana Terzi.
4. Isaac Newton, Opticks (London, 1704). Reflecting telescope, optics of the rainbow.
5. Cosmonaut doll. Presumably Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, 1963.

Misc

1. Nicholas Lane, pocket globe (London, 1809). With star map on concave surface of the case.
2. Gerard Hoet, Figures de la Bible (La Haye [the Hague], 1728).
3. Geneva Bible (1560). Sample Geneva Bible pages.
4. King James Bible (1611). Sample KJV pages.
5. John Walton, Polyglot (1653-1658), 7 vols.
   • Key to a page.
   • Languages in the Bizzell Bible collection.

More resources:

• skytonight.org: my star atlas digital project.
• Painters Prophets Poets blog post.
• kerrysloft.com: my personal blog; search for any names or topics.
• kerrymagruder.com: my professional blog (under construction). See the “videos” tab. It also has a bio page.
• lynx-open-ed.org: When you see references to “lynx-open-ed.org,” those resources will eventually reappear at kerrymagruder.com. The Lynx Open Ed website crashed and no longer exists. I am slowly reconstructing it at kerrymagruder.com but right now only the videos section is useful.
• kerrymagruder.com/hsci: Some of the brief videos from my OU undergraduate survey class, “History of Science, Beginning to Newton,” may be relevant (partial list of brief course videos; course playlist at youTube).

None of my own educational resources above represent the University of Oklahoma. The views and interpretations expressed are all my own.

University web pages:

• History of Science Collections
• Bizzell Bible Collection
• University of Oklahoma Libraries
• repository.ou.edu: Many of the books displayed are digitized and available in the library’s open access online library.

Become a researcher at the OU History of Science Collections:

You are welcome to come back as a researcher. You do not need to be an academic scholar. There is a registration process. After that, the books will be brought to you in the Reading Room. It’s good to request the books in advance so they can be pulled and waiting for you. All this is explained on the web page for the History of Science Collections. Go to the University of Oklahoma Libraries website (libraries.ou.edu) and navigate to the page for the History of Science Collections. There you can register online, request the books you want to see ahead of time, and ask any questions you have for Collections staff. And then come and sit with the books.