Camille Flammarion - Astronomie Populaire. Description générale du ciel - 1881

Fascinating illustrated edition of this celebrated work on General Description of the Sky enriched with 360 figures, 6 chromolithography plates, celestial charts, etc., with numerous black-and-white and color illustrations, full-page and in the text.

A remarkable researcher (he studied double and multiple stars, the topography and atmospheric composition of the Moon and Mars, aerolites, the obliquity variations of the ecliptic), devoted in his later years to spiritist and occult practices, and a very intelligent popularizer of even the most abstruse astronomical theories in a simple, inspired style, he left a large number of works.

He successively describes Mercury, Venus, Earth and Moon with their physical characteristics, reliefs, phases and eclipses, then the outer planets, Mars and its canals then the subject of debates, Jupiter and its satellites, Saturn and its rings, Uranus and Neptune still mysterious.

The author also studies comets, asteroids and meteors, highlighting their role in understanding the origin of the solar system. A large portion of the work is devoted to stars, their classification, their colors, their variable brightness, as well as the constellations that structure the sky map, opening the description of the Milky Way and nebulae, perceived as worlds in formation or distant stellar systems.

Camille Flammarion - Popular Astronomy. General Description of the Sky - 1881 - C. Marpon and E. Flammarion - 839 pages.

Good binding condition, half leather edition, marbled boards, signs of wear, some minor defects on the cover, corner wear at the head, speckled edges, smooth spine prettily decorated with borders and motifs, gilded lettering and author’s name.

Good interior condition, some stains, beautiful vignette on the title page, work enriched with 360 figures, 6 chromolithography plates, celestial charts, etc., in and out of text (some in color) including a frontispiece, marbled endpapers in good condition, very good complete copy with its chromolithographs and its folding plate on the constellations.

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