Art

Each day and night, the fixed stars appear to rotate around the earth like a giant celestial sphere. Just like the Sun, they rise in the east and set in the west. The daily motion of the entire sky, rising from the east, setting in the west, rotating around the north pole, is called the diurnal motion. Learn more about diurnal motion in this learning leaflet.

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What are your favorite constellations?

Urania's Mirror was a set of constellation cards designed to aid in the teaching and learning of constellations. This set includes 32 cards, each focused upon one or a few constellations. Holes punched in the positions of bright stars allow one to hold any card up to a light and compare the star pattern with the constellation figure.

OERs in this set:  

• Urania's Mirror Learning Leaflet
• Urania's Mirror card set (full page)
• Urania's Mirror card set (half page)
• Constellation Activities

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What are your favorite constellations?

Urania's Mirror was a set of constellation cards designed to aid in the teaching and learning of constellations. This set includes 32 cards, each focused upon one or a few constellations. Holes punched in the positions of bright stars allow one to hold any card up to a light and compare the star pattern with the constellation figure. This is the full-page set.

OERs in this set:  

• Urania's Mirror Learning Leaflet
• Urania's Mirror card set (full page)
• Urania's Mirror card set (half page)
• Constellation Activities

DOWNLOAD

What are your favorite constellations?

Urania's Mirror was a set of constellation cards designed to aid in the teaching and learning of constellations. This set includes 32 cards, each focused upon one or a few constellations. Holes punched in the positions of bright stars allow one to hold any card up to a light and compare the star pattern with the constellation figure. This is the half-page set.

OERs in this set:  

• Urania's Mirror Learning Leaflet
• Urania's Mirror card set (full page)
• Urania's Mirror card set (half page)
• Constellation Activities

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Johann Bode, director of the Observatory of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, produced the last of the four major celestial atlases in which artful depictions of constellation figures appear alongside the most up-to-date scientific data. 20 large copperplate engravings plot more than 17,000 stars, far more than any previous atlas. Bode included new stars for the southern hemisphere, along with constellations recently invented by Hevelius and Lacaille. Bode depicted more than 100 constellations, compared with 88 officially recognized today. Some which appeared in this atlas for the first time, but are not officially recognized today, include the Cat, the Printing Press, the Montgolfier Balloon, and the Electric Generator.

This coloring book, produced by the OU Academy of the Lynx, was made from images in Bode's book.  

OERs in this set:  Bode Learning Leaflet | Constellation Activities | Bode Coloring Pages | Bode Original plates

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What are your favorite constellations? 

This beautiful star atlas fused artistic beauty and scientific precision, the last of the four major star atlases in which artful depictions of constellation figures appear alongside the most up to date scientific information. Bode was director of the Observatory of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

OERs in this set:  Bode Learning Leaflet | Constellation Activities | Bode Coloring Pages | Bode Original plates

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Suggested activities to be used in conjunction with Constellation Coloring Pages and Card Sets.

Related OERs:  

• Bode Learning Leaflet | Bode Coloring Pages | Bode Original plates
• Urania's Mirror Learning Leaflet | Urania's Mirror card set (full page) | Urania's Mirror card set (half page)

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Coma Berenices is the only one of the modern 88 official constellations named after a historical figure. It represents the hair of Berenice, Queen of Egypt (267 221 BCE), who reigned with Ptolemy III Euergetes. Learn more about this in this learning leaflet.

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Why write science in a creative style? 

Catherine Whitwell wrote an introduction to the night sky as a conversational dialogue between a mother and daughter. It contains 23 engraved plates drawn by Whitwell herself, including four hand colored folding plates. One of the plates depicts the constellations of Corvus the Crow, Crater the Cup and Hydra the Water Snake. Another plate conveys a dramatic impression of the Full Moon at night, shown against a striking black background. 

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“What was it like when art and astronomy were intertwined?”

Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Lorenzo Sirigatti, Galileo... what joins them together?  Why is Galileo's Starry Messenger (1610) displayed alongside Giorgio Vasari's Lives of Eminent Painters and Sculptors? 

Galileo’s scientific discoveries occurred in the context of a specific artistic culture which possessed sophisticated mathematical techniques for drawing with linear perspective and handling light and shadow.

Do you know someone who received a telescope for Christmas? There's no better way to begin looking through a telescope than to ponder the way Galileo's professional training as an artist prepared him to make his astronomical discoveries.

In the Galileo’s World exhibition, four galleries took their point of departure from Galileo’s Starry Messenger (Sidereus nuncius, 1610):  
• Galileo and Perspective Drawing  
• Galileo and the Telescope   
• The Moon and the Telescope   
• The Sky at Night

These distinct but overlapping galleries were on physical display in different places and combinations during the course of the Galileo’s World exhibition, most notably at the National Weather Center and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.  Various books from these galleries are part of the current Rotating Display and the "The Sky Tonight reprise" gallery, including Galileo’s Starry Messenger itself.

Use this handout to aid you in you as you walk through the 2017 Rotating Display and The Sky at Night reprise gallery.

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