These twelve pastel reproductions are taken from Astronomical Drawings by Étienne Léopold Trouvelot (1827–1895), published in New York in 1881. They were created based on the observations the painter and scientist conducted between 1872 and 1881 at the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge and the United States Naval Observatory in Washington. The works depict various objects in the solar system as well as meteoric and luminous phenomena.