Planisphere
design work - February 2008
Below are photos of the planisphere development. There were many examples
from other antique horological artifacts as well as modern planisphere that are available
on the current market for amateur star gazers that we drew from. The zodiacal figures were
from an antique source while the background star field design was from an on line
planisphere available to any latitude in the world. This is for the latitude of Chicago,
42 degrees North. It turns out that the star field changes are nearly imperceptible for
any variance up to 5 degrees on either side. This covers most of the United States and
Europe. The medieval lettering was designed by the fabricator. The second photo shows the
initial color scheme. I wanted the overall color a bit lighter and the blue shading to
darken at the outer edges and for the milky way star field to be more prominent, resulting
in the third rendering. A copy is inserted into the mockup in the forth photo and the last
one is a larger rendering to show a bit of the detail. What is not shown and will be added
later, is a depiction of the sun as it travels through the zodiac. This was modeled in our
plastic mockup back in March 2006.
