Sorry , no shipping to the USA [thanks to POTUS Joker] 1603, V,rare first edition of the Corvus-Raven Zodiac Plate , by Johann Bayer , Augsburg the first edition can be identified through the text on the back of the engraving Fine hand color with gold heightened Stars From : Uranometria: omnium asterismorum continens schemata, nova methodo delineata, aereis laminis expressa, printed by Christoph Mang Some small professional restoration work done , otherwise excellent How Did Corvus Enter Ancient Mythology? Greek Raven Myth In Greek mythology, Corvus was the raven of Apollo. The bird was sent to fetch water but stopped to eat figs before returning. To excuse the delay, it brought back a water snake and claimed that Hydra had blocked its path. Apollo recognized the lie and placed the raven, the cup, and the snake in the sky together. The story explains why Corvus appears beside Crater and Hydra, while also giving the bird an eternal punishment: it cannot reach the cup of water. Apollo and the Cup The myth is less a scientific explanation than a moral fable about disobedience and dishonesty. Ancient Greek sky lore frequently linked neighboring constellations through narrative, turning an otherwise scattered collection of stars into a coherent scene. Ptolemy included Corvus in his second-century catalog of constellations, helping preserve the pattern within the classical tradition that later shaped European astronomy. Global Astronomical Traditions The raven’s identity is not universal. Babylonian star catalogues included bird-related figures in the same broad region, but their interpretations belonged to a different religious and observational system. Indian astronomy also developed its own nakshatra framework rather than simply adopting Corvus as a direct equivalent. That distinction matters. The stars are universal; the stories are cultural. Johann Bayer 1572 – 7 March 1625) was a German lawyer and uranographer (celestial cartographer). He was born in Rain in 1572. In 1592, aged 20, he began his study of philosophy and law at the University of Ingolstadt, after which he moved to Augsburg to begin work as a lawyer, becoming legal adviser to the city council in 1612. Bayer had several interests outside his work, including archaeology and mathematics. However, he is primarily known for his work in astronomy; particularly for his work on determining the positions of objects on the celestial sphere. He remained unmarried and died in 1625. Uranometria is a star atlas produced by Johann Bayer. It was published in Augsburg in 1603 by Christoph Mang (Christophorus Mangus)[1] under the full title Uranometria: omnium asterismorum continens schemata, nova methodo delineata, aereis laminis expressa (from Latin: Uranometria, containing charts of all the constellations, drawn by a new method and engraved on copper plates). The word "uranometria", from Ancient Greek οὐρανός (ouranós) 'sky, heavens' and μέτρον (metron) 'measure', literally translates to "measuring the heavens". It was the first atlas to cover the entire celestial sphere. Uranometria contains 51 star charts, engraved on copper plates by Alexander Mair (c. 1562–1617). The first 48 charts illustrate each of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations. The 49th chart introduces 12 new constellations in the deep southern sky, which was unknown to Ptolemy. The final two charts are planispheres labeled "Synopsis coeli superioris borea" and "Synopsis coeli inferioris austrina", or (roughly), "Overview of the northern celestial hemisphere" and "Overview of the southern celestial hemisphere". Each plate includes a grid for accurately determining the position of each star to fractions of a degree. The positions used by Bayer to create the Uranometria were taken from the expanded 1,005-star catalog of Tycho Brahe. Brahe's expanded list had circulated in manuscript since 1598 and was available in graphic form on the celestial globes of Petrus Plancius, Hondius, and Willem Blaeu. It was first published in tabular form in Johannes Kepler's Rudolphine Tables of 1627. Uranometria introduced the convention of labelling stars by Greek and Latin letters, known as Bayer designations, a system still in use today. The use of Brahe's catalog allowed for considerably better accuracy than Ptolemy's somewhat limited star listing. The stars listed in Uranometria total over 1,200, indicating that Brahe's catalog was not the only source of information used. Bayer took the southern star positions and constellation names for the 49th plate from the catalog of Dutch navigator Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser, who corrected the older observations of Amerigo Vespucci and Andrea Corsali, as well as the report of Pedro de Medina. Uranometria contains many more stars than did any previous star atlas, though the exact number is disputed as not all stars on the charts are labeled. The stars of each constellation are shown overlain on an engraved image of the subject of the constellation. Convention imagined the human figures facing the Earth, so that previous celestial maps, oriented as though the viewer were looking down upon the celestial sphere from the outside, showed the figures from behind. For many of the human figures, Mair retained this convention of illustrating the figure from behind—but Bayer's projection showed stars as seen from the Earth looking up. Thus, the orientation appears in mirror reflection from Ptolemy's description, leading to some confusion in the literal meanings of certain star names: names referring to the "right shoulder" and the like are incorrect from the perspective of some of Uranometria's illustrations. Star catalogue In the first edition of Uranometria a table of stars was printed on the back of each plate. This made it difficult to consult the table while looking at the chart. Worse still, the lettering of the table showed through the page and spoiled the chart.[4] All later editions of the Uranometria omitted the tables, which were instead printed in a separate catalogue called Explicatio characterum aeneis Uranometrias. This separate catalogue was marred by numerous typographical errors which became worse with subsequent editions.