Description

The maps on this page illustrate Lacaille's zodiacal catalog from Éphémérides des mouvemens célestes [1, pp. lxv-lxxvij]. The previous page has explanations.

They represent Lacaille's zodiacal stars as blue disks sized according to their magnitude. Many zodiacal stars have no magnitude assigned in the catalog; their icons correspond to the arbitrary magnitude 6.

Stars brighter than magnitude 6.5 from the Hipparcos catalog are represented as + crosses at their modern positions adjusted to the catalog's epoch and equinox. Two additional stars from the SAO catalog linked to zodiacal stars are represented as 3-point asterisks. A blue line, often reduced to a dot, connects Lacaille's position to the modern one.

Maps

The four maps below cover the whole catalog. The catalog covers mainly zodiacal stars, and even though it uses equatorial coordinates, the maps are aligned with the ecliptic coordinate system and centered on the equinoxes and solstices. The maps use the equirectangular projection.

Capricorn
ZOD_3
Libra
ZOD_2
Cancer
ZOD_1
Aries
ZOD_0

The catalog's range of ecliptic latitudes extends from -25.38° (star 142, μ Eri) to 17.78° (star 248, Flamsteed's 19 UMa in Lynx). Both these stars are visible on the Cancer map.

References

[1] Éphémérides des mouvemens célestes, pour dix années, depuis 1765 jusqu'en 1775, et pour le meridien de la ville de Paris, Tome VI, Paris: Jean-Thomas Heissant, 1763.


Acknowledgment. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France.