Flammarion

(Nicolas) Camille Flammarion (1842-1925) loved astronomy from the time he was a child growing up in France. He worked at the Paris Observatory for some time before establishing a private Observatory at nearby Juvisy.

He is a somewhat enigmatic figure, establishing the Astronomical Society of France at the same time as promoting a belief in metempsychosis (transmigration of souls) and extraterrestrial lifeforms. He had a keen interest in meteorology which led him to take many balloon flights. Of his large body of published works, 2 standout as being responsible for popularizing astronomy towards the beginning of the 20th century - Astronomie Populaire (1880) and L'Atmosphere: Météorologie Populaire (1888).

Although I'm of the belief that all the images above are from these 2 books, I am not certain so take the truth of this post with a touch of salt. (not that I would ever claim authority in any entry at BibliOdyssey however I'm usually confident source material and background links have integrity but, like, this is the internet)

• All the images here are from this University of Oklahoma index site. They are all incredibly large TIF images. And now that I've finally gone to the parent site, I see that they have 2 sections of thumbnail images on Flammarion - 1881 & 1888 - *sigh* - I should look before I leech. (I have a few more colour images saved locally as jpegs - nothing of great consequence - they looked like they were from a different publication [although perhaps still Flammarion]. Email me if you would like the images)
• This MIT site was the original place that sparked my Flammarion interest (see also their Balloon Prints page which I've posted before)
• There has been a lot of speculation as to the origin of the large woodcut image above (planets) with middle ages artists being given credit. But, according to this site (translation) it is now believed that the image was probably either drawn by Flammarion himself or made under his direct orders.
• Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy & Spaceflight entry on Flammarion (translation)
• L'Observatoire de Camille Flammarion
• Spanish wikipedia entry (translation).
  

[Click the images above for larger versions]