1748 Tobias Mayer View of the Partial Lunar Eclipse of 1748

Detailing a Projected Lunar Eclipse.

This is Tobias Mayer's 1748 celestial chart projecting the partial lunar eclipse of August 8 and 9, 1748. Published by the Nuremberg map printing house of Homann Heirs, this bilingual chart detailed the phases of the eclipse and the parts of the world from which the event would be visible.

A Closer Look

This elegant chart (as described in its two cartouches, in German and in French) mathematically and astronomically projected the course and appearance of a partial lunar eclipse in the eclipse season of 1748, occurring just two weeks after the annular solar eclipse of July 25 of that year. Flanked by the two cartouches is a map of the face of the moon, with a shaded area indicating the part which would be obscured in the eclipse. To the right, a stereographic projection of the world presents the lands from which the eclipse would be visible, in full or in part. Tables and diagrams on the rest of the sheet indicate the times of the eclipse and its phases as they would be observed from the meridian of Berlin.

Publication History and Census

This sheet was published by Homann Heirs in 1748, probably initially for separate issue. We see half a dozen examples in institutional collections.

Cartographers

Tobias Mayer (February 17, 1723 - February 20, 1762) was a German astronomer and cartographer famous for his studies of the Moon. He was born in Marbach, Germany and raised in Esslingen in poverty. Between 1744 and 1746, Mayer studied engraving in Augsburg under Andreas Silbereisen (1713 - 1751). Moving to Nuremberg, he began working for the Homann Heirs company in 1746. There, he showed outstanding prowess and introduced many improvements to cartography. For example, Mayer composed Mappa Critica, which illustrated the accuracy, or rather lack thereof, of the latitudes and longitudes of locations in Germany. The map showed three Germanies according to three different cartographers, de l'Isle, Homann, and himself. 'The latitudes of the cities was mostly consistent, whereas the longitudes of some places (such as Dresden or Prague) differed by as much as a degree, thus showing to what extent longitude was problematic even on land' (Wepster, Steven, Between Theory and Observations: Tobias Mayer's Explorations of Lunar Motion, 1751-1755, Berlin, 2009). Mayer went on to create some of the first charts of the Moon and his chart of the full moon was unsurpassed for half a century. His fame comes from his lunar tables, and thanks to his scientific reputation he was elected as the chair of economy and mathematics at the University of Göttingen in 1751. He became superintendent of the observatory in 1754, where he worked until his death in 1762. Mayer is occasionally erroneously referred to as 'the Elder' or 'Johann Tobias the Elder.'   Further Details...

Homann Heirs (1730 - 1848) were a map publishing house based in Nuremberg, Germany, in the middle to late 18th century. After the great mapmaker Johann Baptist Homann's (1664 - 1724) death, management of the firm passed to his son Johann Christoph Homann (1703 - 1730). J. C. Homann, perhaps realizing that he would not long survive his father, stipulated in his will that the company would be inherited by his two head managers, Johann Georg Ebersberger (1695 - 1760) and Johann Michael Franz (1700 - 1761), and that it would publish only under the name 'Homann Heirs'. This designation, in various forms (Homannsche Heirs, Heritiers de Homann, Lat Homannianos Herod, Homannschen Erben, etc..) appears on maps from about 1731 onwards. The firm continued to publish maps in ever diminishing quantities until the death of its last owner, Christoph Franz Fembo (1781 - 1848).   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Marginal mends at folds. Original wash color.

References

OCLC 257563743.