[Chart of the Zodiac including the Stars to the 4th. Magnitude / possibly by John Carmichael]

XV/6

fonds

ca. 1830-1836

Graphic Materials, Prints

52456

Prints - 19.2 x 116.8 cm. Sheet has been irregularly trimmed and cut into quarters - 1 lithograph [?]

Dated and titled by imprint on a similar star chart at V/6 Mitchell Library and a letter from Robert FitzRoy to Sir Thomas Mitchell thanking him for a copy of the chart on 28 January 1836 cf. MSS A292 p.218 Mitchell Library.
Possibly by John Carmichael (1803-1857) cf. Chart of the Zodiac... V/6 Mitchell Library
Chart is accompanied by a letter by John Benson Martin ca.1880 which states the chart was given to him by John Carmichael, and that it was made under the supervision of James Dunlop and Sir Thomas Mitchell.
The chart is very close in composition and size to an aquatint engraving of the same subject by John Carmichael at V/6 Mitchell Library. But examination under a microscope suggests XV/6 is a lithograph. The astronomer James Dunlop had been taught lithography in Edinburgh in 1821 and accompanied Governor Brisbane to Australia in 1822 cf. John Service, Thir Notandums, 1890, p.139, A925.2D Mitchell Library. Possibly Dunlop was involved in the creation of the chart.

The Places of the Stars are caculated for the Year 18[ ] and letters read according to the apparent Position of Stars in the Southern Hemisphere in pencil at bottom of plate
"Between the Parallels of 24[ ] [ ] South" in pencil at top of plate
"Star Chart presented to the Library of the Windsor Observatory by the Rev. W. Woolls. Phd. and supposed to be partly the work of Mr. James Dunlop. See letter attached by Mr. J.B. Martin" handwritten on label previously fixed to chart