I’m looking around at early astronomy drawings on Google images

https://www.google.com/search?q=early+astronomy+drawings

and early astronomy paintings,

https://www.google.com/search?q=early+astronomy+paintings

just wondering what the earliest ones are dated to?

i seem to recall a bone with what appears to be phases of the moon. african maybe.

Here’s an early one, but there were earlier depictions of starry skies etc with no attempt to portray actual constellations

ChrispenEvan said:

i seem to recall a bone with what appears to be phases of the moon. african maybe.

A sculptural piece, yes, another good study area.

Bubblecar said:

Here’s an early one, but there were earlier depictions of starry skies etc with no attempt to portray actual constellations

Ta

I forgot about The Nebra Sky Disc

CrazyNeutrino said:

I’m looking around at early astronomy drawings on Google images

https://www.google.com/search?q=early+astronomy+drawings

just wondering what the earliest ones are dated to?

Thankfully, the very earliest “astronomy” drawings were not found by that Google search. The earliest ones are exceedingly iffy.

I was looking into this as post of my investigation into the nearest stars. In the earliest references to Sirius for example it is not possibly to distinguish whether the object referred to is Sirius or the Sun. In the earliest references to Procyon it is not possible to distinguish whether the object being referred to if Procyon or Sirius. In earliest drawings of the constellations it is never possible to distinguish whether what is being illustrated is a genuine constellation or a random scattering of stars. You understand? A huge amount of work has been been done on this topic by scholars, but my personal opinion is that all these ancient drawings sum up to is essentially nil.

Both names “Sirius” and “Dog Star” had reliably appeared in print by about 700 BC in the works of Hesiod and Homer.

The earliest surviving Greek account specifically of Procyon is in the Phaenomena of Eudoxus written around 275 BC by Aratus the poet. Aratus identified 47 constellations and named six individual stars including Sirius and Procyon.

The first reliable reference to Alpha Centauri was probably by Eratosthenes c. 276 – 195 BC.

By far the most complete and accurate ancient catalog of the stars is the Almagest of Ptolemy from AD 150 give or take a few years. This would have had drawings, but the original drawings were lost and all we’re left with is a gazette giving the positions of each star in each constellation. The Almagest consists of thirteen volumes, called books. Three copies survive from the 1500s, a Latin copy from 1515, a Latin copy from 1528 and a Greek copy from 1538. Of the three, the Greek copy seems least altered. The next oldest copies (not counting translations) are from 1712, 1786, 1816 and 1843.

There are several surviving astronomy atlases showing constellations and stars from the late 1500s and early 1600s. The most famous is Bayer’s Uranographia of 1603. It was this atlas that gave us many of the star names we use today, a greek letter followed by a constellation name, including Alpha Centauri and Epsilon Eridani.

mollwollfumble said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

I’m looking around at early astronomy drawings on Google images

https://www.google.com/search?q=early+astronomy+drawings

just wondering what the earliest ones are dated to?

Thankfully, the very earliest “astronomy” drawings were not found by that Google search. The earliest ones are exceedingly iffy.

I was looking into this as post of my investigation into the nearest stars. In the earliest references to Sirius for example it is not possibly to distinguish whether the object referred to is Sirius or the Sun. In the earliest references to Procyon it is not possible to distinguish whether the object being referred to if Procyon or Sirius. In earliest drawings of the constellations it is never possible to distinguish whether what is being illustrated is a genuine constellation or a random scattering of stars. You understand? A huge amount of work has been been done on this topic by scholars, but my personal opinion is that all these ancient drawings sum up to is essentially nil.

Both names “Sirius” and “Dog Star” had reliably appeared in print by about 700 BC in the works of Hesiod and Homer.

The earliest surviving Greek account specifically of Procyon is in the Phaenomena of Eudoxus written around 275 BC by Aratus the poet. Aratus identified 47 constellations and named six individual stars including Sirius and Procyon.

The first reliable reference to Alpha Centauri was probably by Eratosthenes c. 276 – 195 BC.

By far the most complete and accurate ancient catalog of the stars is the Almagest of Ptolemy from AD 150 give or take a few years. This would have had drawings, but the original drawings were lost and all we’re left with is a gazette giving the positions of each star in each constellation. The Almagest consists of thirteen volumes, called books. Three copies survive from the 1500s, a Latin copy from 1515, a Latin copy from 1528 and a Greek copy from 1538. Of the three, the Greek copy seems least altered. The next oldest copies (not counting translations) are from 1712, 1786, 1816 and 1843.

There are several surviving astronomy atlases showing constellations and stars from the late 1500s and early 1600s. The most famous is Bayer’s Uranographia of 1603. It was this atlas that gave us many of the star names we use today, a greek letter followed by a constellation name, including Alpha Centauri and Epsilon Eridani.

thanks for that

here is one early image I like, this one is from 1880

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_engraving