Carte Du Ciel

The Carte du Ciel (literally, 'Map of the Sky') and the Astrographic Catalogue (or Astrographic Chart) were two distinct but connected components of a massive international astronomical project, initiated in the late 19th century, to catalogue and map the positions of millions of stars as faint as 11th or 12th magnitude. Twenty observatories from around the world participated in exposing and measuring more than 22,000 (glass) photographic plates in an enormous observing programme extending over several decades. Despite, or because of, its vast scale, the project was only ever partially successful – the Carte du Ciel component was never completed, and for almost half a century the Astrographic Catalogue part was largely ignored. However, the appearance of the Hipparcos Catalogue in 1997 has led to an important development in the use of this historical plate material.

Participating observatories and stars measured in the context of the Astrographic Catalogue
Observatory	Declination		Epoch	No. of
(Zone)	From	To		stars
Greenwich	+90°	+65°	1892–1905	179,000
Vatican	+64°	+55°	1895–1922	256,000
Catania	+54°	+47°	1894–1932	163,000
Helsingfors	+46°	+40°	1892–1910	159,000
Potsdam	+39°	+32°	1893–1900	108,000
Hyderabad north	+39°	+36°	1928–1938	149,000
Uccle	+35°	+34°	1939–1950	117,000
Oxford 2	+33°	+32°	1930–1936	117,000
Oxford 1	+31°	+25°	1892–1910	277,000
Paris	+24°	+18°	1891–1927	253,000
Bordeaux	+17°	+11°	1893–1925	224,000
Toulouse	+10°	+05°	1893–1935	270,000
Algiers	+04°	−02°	1891–1911	200,000
San Fernando	−03°	−09°	1891–1917	225,000
Tacubaya	−10°	−16°	1900–1939	312,000
Hyderabad south	−17°	−23°	1914–1929	293,000
Córdoba	−24°	−31°	1909–1914	309,000
Perth	−32°	−37°	1902–1919	229,000
Perth/Edinburgh	−38°	−40°	1903–1914	139,000
Cape Town	−41°	−51°	1897–1912	540,000
Sydney	−52°	−64°	1892–1948	430,000
Melbourne	−65°	−90°	1892–1940	218,000