To illustrate the science of astronomy, Charles F. Blunt has created 104 coloured panels entitled The beauty of the heavens. Together with the explanatory text, they are intended as instruction for the whole family:
“With its aid a family need not henceforth quit their own parlour, or drawing-room fireside, to enjoy the sublime “beauty of the heavens;” but, within their domestic circle, may, without any previous acquirements in Astronomy, become their own instructors in knowledge of its great and leading truths and phenomena (v).”
Unfortunately, there is very little information about the author of this visually appealing work. The beauty of the heavens is online via e-rara.ch.
Frontispiece
Plate I – The fixed Stars
Plate II – The Earth: its Form, and Position in Space
Plate XI – The Planet Saturn
Plate XIII – The Moon at the Full
Plate L – Monoceros and Canis Minor
Plate LVIII – Eclipse of the Moon
Plate LXII – An Annular Eclipse of the Sun
Plate LXXVI – The Moon’s Surface: Tycho
Plate LXXXIII – The Nebula of the Constellation Hercules
Plate XCIII – Atmospheric Refraction
Plate CIII – Clouds – Nimbus, or Rain-Cloud