Book Collection
A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way. Parts I & II. - 1927, by Edward Emerson Barnard
This atlas was posthumously published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Part I was compiled by Edwin B. Frost and Mary R. Calvert. Part II was written and compiled by Edwin B. Frost and Mary R. Calvert.
Barnard was a very talented and gifted astronomer that worked during the later part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries. Barnard's Star, known for its high proper motion, is named after him. Barnard was born into poverty and starting at the age of nine was an apprentice to a photographer in Nashville, where he worked for 17 years learning the art of photography. He had a strong interest in wide field astronomical photgraphy that culminated in this atlas. Barnard picked through over 35,000 photographs that he had taken through a 10 inch diameter astrograph at Mount Wilson, but he died before the atlas was completed. The atlas was completed by his niece Mary R. Calvert and Edwin B. Frost, then the director of the Yerkes Observatory. There were 700 copies of this atlas printed and most of them went to institutional libraries. This copy was originally owned by the astronomer John Charles Duncan. I acquired this atlas through Hertiage Auctions in Dallas Texas.
Book Spines.
Pleiades Region.
Ophiuchus Region.
Sagittarius Region.
Aquarius Region.
Pleiades Region Chart.
Sagittarius Region Chart.
For more information on Edward Emerson Barnard see the following articles.
Edward Emerson Barnard on Wikipedia
Online version of Barnard's atlas and biographical information from the Georgia Institute of Technology
A Vimeo video about Barnard's Atlas featuring Rebecca Romney of Bauman Rare Books. Rebecca makes an incorrect statement at the end of this video where she says that this atlas lead to the discovery of dark matter. Barnard's atlas revealed the presence of large amounts of dark obscurring dust and molecular clouds in the Mily Way Galaxy, not dark matter which is transparent.
Video from Bauman Rare Books