Star Tales grew out of my skywatching guides for amateur astronomers. As I came to describe each constellation, I found myself wondering about its origin and the way in which ancient people had personified it in mythology. Astronomy books did not contain satisfactory answers. They either gave no mythology at all, or they recounted stories that, I later discovered, were not true to the Greek and Roman originals. I decided to write my own book on the mythology of the constellations. The result was published in 1988. A revised and expanded edition appeared in 2018 by when it had grown into a comprehensive biography of the constellations from Ptolemaic times to the present: not just the 88 officially recognized figures which are described in Chapter Three, but also two dozen others that fell by the wayside, featured in Chapter Four. This web version contains additional information not found in the books, most notably details on how Chinese astronomers visualized the stars, a subject still poorly understood in the west. Further updates and improvements to these pages are made from time to time.

Contents

• Preface

• Chapter One:  Stars and storytellers
• Eudoxus, Aratus, and the Phaenomena
• Identifying the constellation inventors
• The mythographers
• Ptolemy’s 48 constellations
• The Almagest
• Arabic influences
• Al-Sufi’s constellations
• Extending Ptolemy’s 48
• Tycho Brahe’s great star catalogue
• Scouting the southern sky
• Johann Bayer’s southern star chart
• The constellations of Petrus Plancius
• Jacob Bartsch and seven new constellations
• Frederick de Houtman’s catalogue
• Filling the remaining gaps
• Edmond Halley’s southern star catalogue
• The star catalogue and atlas of Johannes Hevelius
• Hevelius presents his new constellations
• Nicolas Louis de Lacaille at the Cape
• Lacaille’s southern planisphere
• The final 88
• Francis Baily and the British Association Catalogue
• Benjamin Gould and the Uranometria Argentina

• Chapter Two:  Star maps
• The Farnese Atlas
• Flat star charts
• Astrolabes
• The Chinese sky – a lost tradition
• Charting the Chinese sky
• Picturing the Ptolemaic constellations
• Illustrating the works of Aratus and Hyginus
• First printed star chart
• Dürer’s hemispheres of 1515
• Alessandro Piccolomini’s star atlas
• Bayer’s Uranometria
• Bayer letters
• Hevelius and the Firmamentum Sobiescianum
• Flamsteed’s Atlas Coelestis
• Flamsteed numbers
• Bode’s Uranographia
• End of a tradition
• The atlases of Argelander and Heis
• Linking the stars

• Chapter Three: The celestial eighty-eight (plus two)

Origins, mythology and illustrations of all 88 present-day constellations from Andromeda to Vulpecula, plus the Milky Way and the aurora

Andromeda | Antlia | Apus | Aquarius | Aquila | Ara | Aries | Auriga | Boötes | Caelum

Camelopardalis | Cancer | Canes Venatici | Canis Major | Canis Minor | Capricornus

Carina | Cassiopeia | Centaurus | Cepheus | Cetus | Chamaeleon | Circinus | Columba

Coma Berenices | Corona Australis | Corona Borealis | Corvus | Crater | Crux | Cygnus

Delphinus | Dorado | Draco | Equuleus | Eridanus | Fornax | Gemini | Grus | Hercules

Horologium | Hydra | Hydrus | Indus | Lacerta | Leo | Leo Minor | Lepus | Libra | Lupus

Lynx | Lyra | Mensa | Microscopium | Monoceros | Musca | Norma | Octans | Ophiuchus

Orion | Pavo | Pegasus | Perseus | Phoenix | Pictor | Pisces | Piscis Austrinus | Puppis

Pyxis | Reticulum | Sagitta | Sagittarius | Scorpius | Sculptor | Scutum | Serpens | Sextans

Taurus | Telescopium | Triangulum | Triangulum Australe | Tucana | Ursa Major

Ursa Minor | Vela | Virgo | Volans | Vulpecula | Milky Way | Aurora

• Chapter Four:  Obsolete constellations

The true stories behind two dozen now-defunct constellations, including a tiny bit of scandal concerning a Roman Emperor

Antinous | Argo Navis | Cerberus | Custos Messium | Felis | Gallus | Globus Aerostaticus

Harpa Georgii | Honores Friderici | Jordanus | Lochium Funis | Machina Electrica

Mons Maenalus | Musca Borealis | Officina Typographica | Quadrans Muralis

Rangifer | Robur Carolinum | Sceptrum Brandenburgicum | Taurus Poniatovii

Telescopium Herschelii | Tigris | Triangulum Minus | Turdus Solitarius

• Sources and references

Additional reading (links):

The Golden Age of the Celestial Atlas (Linda Hall Library, Missouri)

Historical Celestial Atlases on the web (Robert Harry van Gent)

Atlas Coelestis (Felice Stoppa – in Italian)