In his presentation, Dr. Kanas will talk about the historical development of star charts beginning with earliest to the exquisite works of art from 17th through 19th century Europe and ending up with the more practical charts that we commonly use today. The talk will be illustrated with outstanding example star charts from the various time periods.

Nick Kanas, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at UCSF and the Veterans Hospital in San Francisco, is currently conducting research on psychosocial factors affecting astronauts and cosmonauts in space.  He is a collector of star maps and a cartographic connoisseur.  An amateur astronomer since childhood, he has pursued the study and collection of antiquarian star atlases for over two decades. He has presented lectures for the California Map Society, as well as regional amateur astronomy associations.  

Dr. Kanas is the author of a wonderful book: Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography (Springer, 2007).  His enthusiasm leaps from every page of this detailed investigation of the development of celestial prints and star atlases.  It chronicles attempts to chart the stars from ancient times to today. Alongside the familiar terrain of classical Western astronomy are star charts from China, Egypt and Mesopotamia. As well as exploring the changing equipment in astronomy and cartography, the book covers the philosophies and personalities that saw star charts develop from images of gods and animals into the more scientific (although less beautiful) maps in use today.   Read the review in Astronomy.com.

Dr. Kanas is the also the father of the new field of space psychiatry. Working with astronauts for more than 35 years studying the psychological effects of space travel, Kanas is currently the principal investigator of an international NASA-funded study assessing cultural factors and crewmember and crew-to-ground interactions during missions with the International Space Station. In 1999, he won the Aerospace Medical Association Raymond F. Longacre Award for outstanding accomplishment in the psychological and psychiatric aspects of aerospace medicine, and in 2004 his text "Space Psychology and Psychiatry" won the Life Sciences Book Award from the International Academy of Astronautics.