The Sky Atlas unveils some of the most beautiful maps and charts ever created during mankind's quest to map the skies above us. 

This richly illustrated treasury showcases the finest examples of celestial cartography - a glorious genre of map-making often overlooked by modern map books - as well as medieval manuscripts, masterpiece paintings, ancient star catalogues, antique instruments and other appealing curiosities.

Take a tour of star-obsessed cultures around the world, learning about Tibetan sky burials, star-covered Inuit dancing coats, Mongolian astral prophets and Sir William Herschel's 1781 discovery of Uranus, the first planet to be found since antiquity. 

Even stranger are the forgotten stories from European history, like the English belief of the Middle Ages in ships that sailed a sea above the clouds, 16th-century German UFO sightings and the Edwardian aristocrat who mistakenly mapped alien-made canals on the surface of Mars.

Product Information:
• ISBN: 9781471178931
• Author: Edward Brooke-Hitching
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Format: Hardback
• Pages: 256
• Dimensions: 25.2 x 20 x 2.8 cm