Introduction

The initial project for these pages was to draw the Star Maps by Constellation. The coordinates for the constellations boundaries were one of the first requirements, which led to the Constellation Boundaries page. Unable to find a complete set of Flamsteed and Bayer star designations, I resorted to Morton Wagman's book Lost Stars [1] and ended up putting Flamsteed's Catalog in machine-readable form.

This triggered my interest in digitizing other ancient catalogs, identifying their stars (sometimes a thorny task), and drawing star maps. Two pages are dedicated to each catalog, the second one featuring star maps of the catalog in its own coordinate systems.

Ptolemy Catalog Ptolemy Maps (zip, tar)
Tycho Brahe Catalog Tycho Brahe Maps (zip, tar)
Kepler Maps (zip, tar)
Hevelius Catalog Hevelius Maps (zip, tar)
Flamsteed Catalog Flamsteed Maps (zip, tar)
Lacaille Southern Catalog Southern Star Maps (zip, tar)
Lacaille Zodiacal Catalog Zodiacal Star Maps (zip, tar)
Piazzi Catalog Piazzi Maps (zip, tar)

I try to introduce each catalog with background historical information in order to make the pages more pleasant and hopefully instructive to read. However, I'm not a historian of astronomy and a specialist might frown at some statements or notice gaping holes. I'm open to suggestions for improvement.

The star identifications that I use for the maps, usually contained in a file named …ident.dat (or …ident_o.dat when there are other versions) on the page of the catalog, should not be taken as authoritative. For the naked eye catalogs, I build them by matching the catalogs stars to reference stars visually using the maps. For the telescopic catalogs, I try to match the catalog stars to the Hipparcos or other modern catalogs programmatically.

This usually works well, but there are cases where it is not clear whether a given catalog star should be identified with more than one component of a multiple star, or even with more than one neighboring stars. The identifications may also be inconsistent from a catalog to another. This is a work in progress.

The parts of my work that should be beyond question, and that I hope may be reused by others, are the machine-readable versions of the catalogs. I have patiently copied and verified them, but they may still contain errors or involve arbitrary choices. I would appreciate the feedback if an error is detected.

Several reprints of ancient catalogs contain identifications of their own (Baily's, Dreyer's, etc.). I capture these in their own ident files for comparison, but in a uniform format using modern designations (Bayer/Lacaille letters, Flamsteed numbers, HR, HD, HIP, etc.). For the older sources, this may involve an interpretation effort (e.g., some Bayer letters have a shifty history) that I tried to perform to the best of my ability.

Star maps according to all catalogs

For convenience, the following scrollable tables provide direct access to the star maps according to most of these catalogs, otherwise scattered across multiple pages. I use them frequently to compare catalogs to each other or to the reference (in the last column).

By constellation

The catalogs that group stars by constellation are represented here.

Ptolemy Tycho Kepler Hevelius Flamsteed Reference
And AND AND AND AND AND AND
Ant ANT
Aps APS APS
Aqr AQR AQR AQR AQR AQR AQR
Aql AQL AQL AQL AQL AQL
Ara ARA ARA ARA
Ari ARI ARI ARI ARI ARI ARI
Aur AUR AUR AUR AUR AUR
Boo BOO BOO BOO BOO BOO BOO
Cae CAE
Cam CAM CAM CAM CAM
Cnc CNC CNC CNC CNC CNC CNC
CVn CVN CVN CVN CVN
CMa CMA CMA CMA CMA CMA CMA
CMi CMI CMI CMI CMI CMI
Cap CAP CAP CAP CAP CAP
Car CAR CAR CAR
Cas CAS CAS CAS CAS CAS
Cen CEN CEN CEN CEN CEN
Cep CEP CEP CEP CEP CEP CEP
Cet CET CET CET CET CET CET
Cha CHA CHA
Cir CIR
Col COL COL COL
Com COM COM COM COM COM
CrA CRA CRA CRA
CrB CRB CRB CRB CRB CRB
Crv CRV CRV CRV CRV CRV
Crt CRT CRT CRT CRT CRT
Cru CRU
Cyg CYG CYG CYG CYG CYG CYG
Del DEL DEL DEL DEL DEL
Dor DOR DOR
Dra DRA DRA DRA DRA DRA
Equ EQU EQU EQU EQU EQU
Eri N ERI_N ERI_N ERI_N ERI_N ERI_N ERI_N
Eri S ERI_S ERI_S ERI_S
For FOR
Gem GEM GEM GEM GEM GEM GEM
Gru GRU GRU
Her HER HER HER HER HER HER
Hor HOR
Hya W HYA_W HYA_W HYA_W HYA_W HYA_W HYA_W
Hya E HYA_E HYA_E HYA_E HYA_E HYA_E HYA_E
Hyi HYI HYI
Ind IND IND
Lac LAC LAC LAC
Leo LEO LEO LEO LEO LEO
LMi LMI LMI LMI
Lep LEP LEP LEP LEP LEP
Lib LIB LIB LIB LIB LIB LIB
Lup LUP LUP LUP LUP
Lyn LYN LYN LYN LYN LYN
Lyr LYR LYR LYR LYR LYR
Men MEN
Mic MIC MIC MIC MIC
Mon MON MON MON MON MON
Mus MUS MUS
Nor NOR
Oct OCT OCT
Oph OPH OPH OPH OPH OPH OPH
Ori ORI ORI ORI ORI ORI
Pav PAV PAV
Peg PEG PEG PEG PEG PEG
Per PER PER PER PER PER PER
Phe PHE PHE
Pic PIC
Psc PSC PSC PSC PSC PSC PSC
PsA PSA PSA PSA PSA
Pup PUP PUP PUP PUP PUP PUP
Pyx PYX
Ret RET
Sge SGE SGE SGE SGE SGE
Sgr SGR SGR SGR SGR SGR SGR
Sco SCO SCO SCO SCO SCO SCO
Scl SCL
Sct SCT SCT SCT
Ser 1 SER1 SER1 SER1 SER1 SER1 SER1
Ser 2 SER2 SER2 SER2 SER2 SER2 SER2
Sex SEX SEX SEX
Tau TAU TAU TAU TAU TAU TAU
Tel TEL
Tri TRI TRI TRI TRI TRI
TrA TRA TRA
Tuc TUC
UMa UMA UMA UMA UMA UMA
UMi UMI UMI UMI UMI UMI
Vel VEL VEL VEL
Vir VIR VIR VIR VIR VIR VIR
Vol VOL VOL
Vul VUL VUL VUL
Ptolemy Tycho Kepler Hevelius Flamsteed Reference

By coordinate ranges

For catalogs that don't group stars by constellation, the maps cover coordinate ranges rather than individual constellations. They are gathered here along with an adapted version of the reference maps.

Lacaille Piazzi Reference
65°–90° 00 00
22h–2h 20°–70° 01 01
2h– 6h 20°–70° 02 02
6h–10h 20°–70° 03 03
10h–14h 20°–70° 04 04
14h–18h 20°–70° 05 05
18h–22h 20°–70° 06 06
22h–2h -25°–25° 07 07
2h– 6h -25°–25° 08 08
6h–10h -25°–25° 09 09
10h–14h -25°–25° 10 10
14h–18h -25°–25° 11 11
18h–22h -25°–25° 12 12
22h– 2h -70°–-20° 13 13 13
2h– 6h -70°–-20° 14 14 14
6h–10h -70°–-20° 15 15 15
10h–14h -70°–-20° 16 16 16
14h–18h -70°–-20° 17 17 17
18h–22h -70°–-20° 18 18 18
-90°–-65° 19 19
Lacaille Piazzi Reference

References

[1] Morton Wagman, Lost Stars, McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company, Blacksburg, Virginia, 2003.