Meissner, August Gottlieb. Astronomischer Hand-Atlas zu Rüdigers Kenntniss des Himmels. Leipzig, 1805.
Meissner’s Hand-Atlas was produced as a companion to Christian Rüdiger’s Gemeinfassliche Anleitung zur Kenntniss des Himmels (Popular Introduction to the Heavens). Only two copies of Rüdiger’s primer can be located world-wide, and the atlas seems to be unique. Meissner’s work was based on two atlases: the Flamsteed Atlas celeste of 1795 (Out of This World, item 33), and Bode’s Uranographia of 1801 (Out of This World, item 36).
Meissner adopted the plate order and field of view of the French Flamsteed. But he generally relied on Bode for the constellation figures, and especially for the new constellations that Bode and others had invented. For example, in the illustration above, depicting Monoceros, Canis Major, and Lepus, we can see that the plate shows the same star field as the Flamsteed plate (below left). But Meissner had copied Lepus and Argo from Bode, and he has added in the Printing Press, the Compass, and the Log and Line, all of which he also copied from Bode (below right). Meissner did NOT incorporate all the additional stars and nebulae in Bode’s atlas, which considerably reduced the clutter on his own maps.