Harmonia Macrocosmica

Printed in 1661, the Harmonia Macrocosmica is an atlas of the heavens as seen by the astronomers of the times: Copernicus, Ptolemy (the man), Brahe, and Aratus.

You can browse the 30 colored plates, like a diagram of the Copernican system, or you can read the written text, like this one that's written in an ancient mysterious foreign language...

It's this combination of art and science that really gets me going. It seems that if you wanted to map out the solar system, you needed a kick ass illustrator to do it. Someone who could draw those amazing clockwork diagrams of planets revolving around a sun with a smiling face, and historically that's where kid's got that from.
(via metafilter)