This book traces the history of celestial cartography and relates this history to the changing ideas of mans place in the universe and to advances in map-making. Photographs from actual antiquarian celestial atlases and prints, many previously unpublished, enrich the text, and a legend accompanies each illustration to explain its astronomical and cartographic features. Also included in the book are discussions of non-European celestial maps and chapters on early American influences and celestial map-collecting.

With the construction of the International Space Station, and new plans for manned missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond, there is renewed interest in the heavens. An ever-increasing number of people are fascinated with the science of space and are becoming amateur astronomers. Antiquarian map societies are prospering, and celestial maps are now viewed as a specialty of map collecting. The beauty and awe generated by the celestial void captures our imagination and delights our aesthetic sense.

Nick Kanas, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. He has been a member of the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers since 1978 and has collected and researched antiquarian celestial books, atlases, and prints for nearly 25 years. He is a member of several map collector societies and has lectured on the history of celestial cartography at scientific and non-scientific meetings of organizations such as the Sydney (Australia) Observatory, the 20th International Conference on the History of Cartography, and the California Map Society. He also has written articles on this subject for a number of journals and magazines, including Sky& Telescope, Mercury, Imago Mundi, Mercators World, and the Journal of the International Map Collectors Society. Professor Kanas has written over 160 professional articles and 3 books, including, with D. Manzey, Space Psychology and Psychiatry (Kluwer/Springer, 2003), which won the 2004 International Academy of Astronautics Life Science Book Award. He also won Honorable Mention in the 2006 Boeing/Griffith Observer Science Writing Contest for his astronomy article on "Sacrobosco's De Sphaera" (which was published in the astronomy magazine Griffith Observer, sponsored by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles).

What is a star map?.- Non-European cosmology and constellation development.- European cosmology.- European constellation development.- Early European star maps.- The Big Four of the Golden Age of pictorial star maps.- Other important star maps of the Golden Age.- Special topics.- Mapping the stars in early America.- The transition to non-pictorial star maps.