Celestial Chart – Zodiacus stellatus cujus limitibus Planetarum Omnium visibles viae comprehenduntur (Seller, c. 1679)

This remarkable celestial engraving is from John Seller & John Senex’s Stelleri Zodiacus Stellatus. The work charted Edmund Halley’s southern hemisphere stars and visualized the new coordinates of John Flamsteed. The work was published in London between 1675 and 1721 by Senex et. al.

It is a rare English astronomy chart from the cartographers, John Seller and John Senex. The original work had four charts from Seller including two of the Northern hemisphere, one of the Southern hemisphere, and a zodiac map. The zodiac map would be “the first published zodiac” described as “being very useful, at all times, to find out the places of the Planets; wherein may be seen their daily motion, and their appulses to the Fixed stars. Accurately laid down by the said Mr. Edmund Halley.” (Warner, p. 233, no. 3) The work also included four charts from Senex’s shop, including two of the Northern and two of the Southern skies which were the work of John Flamsteed. “Through the charts and globes of Senex … the Halley/Flamsteed catalog was widely available.” (Warner, p. 239)

John Flamsteed who had been tasked with “dragging positional astronomy into the seventeenth century, of bringing it abreast of the new descriptive astronomy to which the telescope has thus far been almost exclusively applied.” (DSB, vol. 5&6, p. 23) Flamsteed’s observations contributed to the known number of northern stars increasing by 2000. “Flamsteed’s catalogue, developed from telescopic observations, was the first to include seventh-magnitude stars [and] Senex’s maps, based on Flamsteed’s catalogues, were the first depicting these telescopic stars … The positions of novas (i.e., new and variable stars) and nebulas on Senex’s maps were derived from Halley’s two review articles published in Philosophical Transactions in 1715 and 1716. Thus the north equatorial map shows four new stars and two telescopic nebulas.” (Warner, p. 242)

Provenance: Bookplate of Macclesfield Library. George Parker, the 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, was also an astronomer that entered the Royal Society in 1722 just as Senex would be publishing the Halley and Flamsteed charts.