Seventeenth Century Astronomy Illustration

How do you know it's from circa 1650? You don't give us much to work with.

Thanks for responding so quickly, Setanta.

The curators at Chicago Adler Planetarium believe it is circa 1650. The paper is hand-made (I can see the chain lines from the wire mold). I can also see the imprint left by the copper plate. Some of the colored ink from the hand-coloring can be seen on the other side of the paper. Simply on the basis of the history of printing, illustrations were printed from engraved copper plates and then colored by hand in seventeenth century Europe.

As far as the history of science is concerned, Tycho Brahe's idea had some support in the early seventeenth century.

I envy you, Wandel. I have nothing but old baseball cards.

That's interesting, Gus. Any valuable baseball cards in your collection?

Another point that may place it in the early seventeenth century is that the diagrams show a circle of stars. Before Newton and before better telescopes, people believed that there was a "wheel of stars" surrounding the universe.

Actually, I have Harmon Killebrew's rookie card.

Kinda cool.

Fat, bald guy. You would never suspect that he hit so many home runs.

Send the pic to the Antiques Roadshow wande.

They'll probably be able to identify it. And tell you what it's worth. If it's really interesting, by which I mean worth a lot, they'll probably fly you over to appear on the show and there's your 15 minutes of fame.

Anybody else not had their's yet?

What is that symbol on the top right-hand corner?

looks like a plate number

Wandel, you seem to miss a point here. If it displays characteristics of a seventeenth century document, that's fine, but saying from that that it is circa 1650 is hardly helpful. To know the source, it would be necessary to come a lot closer to the actual publishing date than just "the seventeenth century." As it stands, about the only way to identify it would be to peruse every even remotely plausible text published in the seventeenth century to look for that plate. I suspect that we don't have anyone here who is willing to do that, although there is an outside shot--very remote--that an expert in scientific treatises of the seventeenth century might stumble in here who will recognize that plate.

Can you provide a better image? By which i mean, can you post a larger, better focused image at an image site and give us a link? That might help someone to recognize it.

we are fortunate around here to have 3 sources of such doumentation technology. They lie in the collections of The University of Delaware (which house sevral libraries of rare and "questioned" volumes amassed by the Dupont family), Winterthr (which ahs one of the best paper conservatories) and Princeto U, which set up its rare "ephemera" lab from amassing all its original documents of EInstein and others.

If you get a better copy and link it as set asked, Ill try to pass it over to some of these sources.

I believe the Field Museum has the guns to help you.


The ability to either "reoccupy" or actually make laid paper isnt hard, and there are several collectors whove gotten screwed badly by making sizable purchase of " documents made to deceive"

I would imagine that, should this prove genuine, itd be valuable . Did you acquire it at a sale?


Theres this example of someone , antique hunting at a flea market named "Shupps Grove " in ADamstown Pa, had purchased a framed picture about 20"X24". The purchase wanted the frame because it had a "primitive look"
with corner block instead of mitered cornrs. The purchaser got the thing home and removed the picture in order to clean the frame. Inside the frame, behind the original picture, was what appeared to be a bill with a galley proof of the Declaration of Independence.
It turned out, via authentication , that the DofI was one of just a few true copied printed in Philly a few days after July 2. Only 2 of these exist , I believe, so the "ephemera trade" ent nuts and the document sold for 2 Million bucks. It has since been reauctioned for profit and the last price I heard (As reported by MAine Antiques Digest) was 8 Million

Even a half-witted, barely qualified psychiatrist would have looked over his glasses with one eyebrow raised when the word "guns" popped out as a synonym for what looks like a jellyfish when caught in its underpants and I'm at a loss to find a suitable word for what it looks like when caught without them.

That was artistic peer-reviewing fm.

I feel sure that when the silly sods read "guns" a rosy glow of self-satisfaction will suffuse their whole being and you will become, in their eyes at least, a sound man to include in the peer-reviewing circulation list circles. I presume it, the glow, will be controlled and not reach that shaking and juddering which we normally associate with glows of self-satisfaction suffusing the whole being.

The picture wande displayed in order to display his taste in ancient artefacts has no indications as to its size. To what dimensions wande have the three cosmoses (I've never seen the plural of cosmos so that proves there's only one--obviously) been shrunk down to fit into whatever it fits into? How does it "live" from day to day?

fm wrote-



"Reeealy!!?" our half-witted psychiatrist would say, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead and leaning back on his recliner closing his eyes.

Maybe someone had hidden it behind another one.

A spy say. Caught and shot like a dog. Quarters looted.

His sweetheart begged the picture off the officer in charge as a momento of her lost love because he had said that when he was haggling for it was the moment he had seen the curtains move at an upstairs window and a pale shape step back when he looked at it. He was buying it for a similar reason that the purchaser at Shrupps Grove had but in his case it was the 20"x 24" he was interested in and not the arty-farty stuff at Shrupps. It was in the way of a tin-opener to the spy.

Having bought it he then enquires as to the residents of the building where he saw the curtains move.

Such a romance needs must be short. This is not a sweetheart who betrayed him. You need one of those scumbags to get a long story going.

And, oh--how sweet this is-- she carries around with her for the rest of her life a galley proof of the Declaration of Independence and without even knowing it.

Does anybody know what the other picture was fm?

OK fm. Here's a challenge for you. You're into challenges I remember. Daft ones they were too. This one isn't daft.

Let's assume, as any sceptic would, that it was a fake along with the story of it's history.

Big money is known to be attracted to rare documents and is itself an attraction for certain types of extreme cunning and fiendish skills.

This story is itself the type of story that keeps millions rooting around at swap-meets, car-boot sales and junk shops in the hope of finding something which will make money. Nosey-parkering has a significant contribution to make as well. As does an inability to sit quietly in a room.

So explain to us how you would go about faking such a thing and the process by which $2million falls into your lap.

I am, of course, not saying it was faked. I don't like having to say that but some of you can't read properly.

It is not a scientific certainty that it is genuine on the evidence presented.

The Hitler Diaries were authenticated. Serialised in the newspapers too.

Is it likely to be insured for it turning out a fake?

spendi. Heres another thread that youre infesting. WHy not go and frighten the children with your incessent babble.

PS, Im sure, had you had enough time and some talent, you could have shortened , focused, and greatly improved the above 3 nonsesne posts into one brief, statement and query.

Guess your low on talent and long on verbal flatulence.


PPS, I love how mathos always pokes you a new one . Youd think, by now, youd learn to avoid him since he always seems to best you handily.

You're whistling in the dark fm.

It was you who brought a new story into the conversation and I was simply being polite and not ignoring it.

Without me doing that it could look like you had been babbling to yourself. You should be grateful.

What have you got against verbal flatulence. I hope you don't paint with a billposter's brush.

I read some philosopher or other recently who said that non-Christians deny themselves the pleasure of guilt and that morality might not make us better people but it certainly enriched our vices.

He claimed that this is why they were noticeably lacking in joie de vivre.

A lingerie shop window is a poem in guilty sin and an impossibility in an atheist world.

Perhaps this explains your negativity in relation to my posts.

As a teacher you must be well aware that your most important task is to persuade your students to leave aside their natural passions in favour of some hypothetical sordid interest in maturity and old age which interest you have power over with your recommendations and diplomas passed out as a reward for a few years with the nose to the grindstone.

Grumpy, grinchy Gradgrind.