The Sun & the Moon — August MMXXVI
| Day | The Sun | The Moon | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rises | Sets | Decl. | Rises | Sets | Age | |
On the 12th, a total eclipse of the Sun — see Plate IX.
118An interactive star chart of about twelve hundred stars. Dragging turns the celestial sphere; the year dial sweeps the sky through the seasons. The five charted constellations may be selected with the buttons above, which draw their figures and show their particulars.
The Press
Publishers of the heavens, by appointment to no one.
In the winter of 1853, Aurelia Voss — lately dismissed from the Harrowgate Observatory for the impertinence of publishing her own reduction tables — set six columns of figures in borrowed type and sold four hundred copies from a stationer’s window. She called the pamphlet Ephemeris, and promised her readers one thing only: that the heavens would keep the appointments printed herein.
They have kept them for one hundred and seventy-three years since. Every rising, every occultation, every grudging minute of winter daylight in this volume is computed twice, by two computers working apart, and admitted to the page only when their figures agree. The Press still keeps Voss’s rule pinned above the composing stone: print nothing the sky will not honour.
- Founded
- 1853, Harrowgate
- Founder
- Aurelia Voss, computress
- Seat
- Harrowgate Observatory, 51°17′ N
- Computed
- Twice, independently, in disagreement never
- Circulation
- 12,000 cloth · 41,000 paper
- Motto
- Print nothing the sky will not honour
The Editions, 1853–2026
One hundred and seventy-four volumes, unbroken. War thinned the paper; nothing has stopped the figures.
Rest on a starred spine for its story. Eleven copies of the first edition survive; the Press owns three and knows where the others sleep.
Specimen Pages
Pages 118–119 of the present edition, reduced. The figures below are set by the same engine that turns the atlas above.
Phenomena of the Month
Phases of the Moon
Times are local mean time at Harrowgate. The Perseids fall on a moonless night this year; the Press recommends a coat.
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