Image courtesy of the Fabergé Museum

Discovered this fabulous constellation Easter egg by Carl Fabergé, a gift for the Russian royal family that was never received:

Image courtesy of the Fabergé Museum

Nephrite, rock crystal, dark blue glass, gold, diamonds.
Height 29 cm

This egg was made for Empress Alexandra for Easter 1917. The egg has the form of a sphere with a turning dial made out of dark blue glass with clockwork inside. It is encrusted with diamonds and a lion is engraved on it. The heir to the throne, Tsarevitch Alexei, was a Leo in the zodiac. The pedestal is made out of a whole crystal rock placed on a nephrite base. The egg corresponds completely to the original sketch made by Carl Fabergé. According to the sketch, a dark blue sphere engraved with diamonds is encircled with a gold dial plate; the sphere lies on the “clouds” that have been cut from a whole crystal rock placed on the nephrite platform. The only detail which is missing from the egg is five angels who are ascending the “clouds” towards the sphere. Probably this detail wasn’t finished due to the start of the Revolution. And because of the Revolution, «Constellation » was never gifted to the Imperial family.

K. Fabergé firm, H. Wigström’s workshop
Petrograd. 1917

Credit & Copyright: Neil Fleming, flemingastrophotography.com

This lovely nebula is in Cepheus, along with the ghost I posted last week — clearly, this constellation is a happening place to be!

Pillars of gas, dust, and young, hot stars seem to fill the gaping maw of NGC 7822. At the edge of a giant molecular cloud toward the northern constellation Cepheus, the glowing star forming region lies about 3,000 light-years away. Within the nebula, bright edges and dark shapes are highlighted in this colorful skyscape. The image includes data from both broadband and narrowband filters, mapping emission from atomic oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur into blue, green, and red hues. The atomic emission is powered by the energetic radiation from the hot stars, whose powerful winds and radiation also sculpt and erode the denser pillar shapes. Stars could still be forming inside the pillars by gravitational collapse, but as the pillars are eroded away, any forming stars will ultimately be cutoff from their reservoir of star stuff. This field spans around 60 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 7822.

Credit for both images: U.S. Naval Observatory, Space Telescope Science Institute

These remarkable illustrations come from the 17th century Uranographicarum star atlas by Johannis Hevelius, made available here, free for non-commercial use by the U.S. Naval Observatory and the Space Telescope Science Institute. Interestingly: “Hevilius pictured the celestial sphere from the outside looking in, so the views posted here are mirror images of how they should appear against a starfield seen from the center of the celestial sphere. (In other words, you have to flip them.)”

Credit & Copyright: Daniel Marquardt

Yesterday’s APOD just goes to show that black and white photography NEVER goes out of style. Gorgeous detail in this image!

In cosmic brush strokes of glowing hydrogen gas, this beautiful skyscape unfolds across the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy and the center of the northern constellation Cygnus the Swan. Recorded from a premier remote observatory site (ROSA) in southern France, the image spans about 6 degrees. Bright supergiant star Gamma Cygni near image center lies in the foreground of the complex gas and dust clouds and crowded star fields. Left of Gamma Cygni, shaped like two luminous wings divided by a long dark dust lane is IC 1318, whose popular name is understandably the Butterfly Nebula. The more compact, bright nebula at the lower right is NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula. Some distance estimates for Gamma Cygni place it at around 750 light-years while estimates for IC 1318 and NGC 6888 range from 2,000 to 5,000 light-years.

Astronomical observation goes back to the dawn of civilization, and digging around online yielded this neat interactive atlas of ancient astronomy — starts at continents and refines on down from there. Also, the Wikipedia entry on archaeoastronomy is pretty darned extensive, and covers a lot of different cultures and time periods. (Ancient civilizations are a fascination of mine, so the amount of pictures made me a little giddy.)

Archaeoastronomy can be applied to all cultures and all time periods. The meanings of the sky vary from culture to culture; nevertheless there are scientific methods which can be applied across cultures when examining ancient beliefs. It is perhaps the need to balance the social and scientific aspects of archaeoastronomy which led Clive Ruggles to describe it as: “…[A] field with academic work of high quality at one end but uncontrolled speculation bordering on lunacy at the other.”

As for me, I’m just going to oggle the Nebra skydisk:

These beautiful cigarette cards are part of a set entitled “Romance of the Heavens”, issued in 1928 by Wills Cigarettes. (Top and bottom photos were issued in 1929 and have been redone to say “Romance of the Heavens” in the top corner, instead of “Wills Cigarettes”.) I’ve been unable to find larger scans of them (those shown were taken from auction scans, the parts that weren’t watermarked, anyway.)

One seller describes them: “These cards show drawings of the planets and stars; the backs describe how these were understood in the 1920s.” Fortunately an eBay Guide has the details:

Name Of Set: Romance of the Heavens
Manufacturer: WD and HO Wills
Issue Year: 1928
Card Number: 50
Card Titles: Haley’s Comet, One Theory of the Formation of the Moon, Neap Tides, Spring Tides, A Shower of Meteors, A Lunar Corona, Typical Lunar Craters, Lunar Craters, The Earth as Seen From the Moon, Earth Shine, Mock Moons, Phases of the Moon, Portion of the Moon’s Surface, The Dumb Bell Nebula, A Spiral Nebula, The Inner Planets, The Outher Planets, Jupiter, Two Views of Mars, An Imaginary Landscape of Mars, The Surface of Mercury-Imaginary, Saturn, Saturn’s Rings, Two Views of Saturn, The Dark Sid of Venus-and Imaginary View, The Sunlit Sid of Venus-and imaginary view, Cassiopeia and Pole Star, The Composition of a Star, The Evolution of a Star, Two Giant Stars, Leo, The Milky Way, Orion, The Pleiades, The Pole Star and the Plough, The Southern Cross, Variable Stars, The Aurora Australis, The Aurora Borealis, The Cause of Auroras, Solar Corona, Electrical Discharges from the Sun, An Eclipse, An Eclipse of the Sun Viewed from the Moon, The Midnight Sun, Shadows and Rainbows, Solar Prominences, Typical Sun Spot, and The Zodiacal Light.

Sometimes the images that strike me are the simple ones — it’s dramatic, I suppose. Could not help but post this beautiful stamp of the Southern Cross, issued by Argentina in 1997.

A beautiful Etsy find that looks like the night sky, and changes depending on the light source. (It also glows in the dark.) Neat stuff!

More retro album covers that Brian found on 317x.com. Featured today are a pair of ku-raaaaaazy guys and a number of musical-instrument-shaped constellations. Gotta love those horn-rimmed glasses!

This Planisphere Watch is enough reason to go out tonight with a telescope!

The Planisphere Watch displays the constellations visible in the Northern Hemisphere. Simply align the date and time (displayed on the edge of the bezel) and you can view the major constellations visible that evening.

This watch features a durable brass case, scratch resistant crystal dome lens, Japanese quartz movement and a “Super Luminescent” dial that glows for 2 to 3 hours (so you can easily read it in the dark without a flashlight or LED).