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An astrolabe (; ; ) is an astronomy instrument dating to ancient times. It serves as a star chart and physical model of the visible celestial sphere. Its various functions also make it an elaborate inclinometer and an analog computer capable of working out several kinds of problems in astronomy. In its simplest form it is a metal disc with a pattern of wires, cutouts, and perforations that allows a user to calculate astronomical positions precisely. It is able to measure the altitude above the horizon of a celestial body, day or night; it can be used to identify stars or planets, to determine local latitude given local time (and vice versa), to survey, or to triangulation. It was used in classical antiquity, the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic Golden Age, the European Middle Ages and the Age of Discovery for all these purposes.
The astrolabe, which is a precursor to the sextant,
These ranged from the astrological, the astronomical and the religious, to navigation, seasonal and daily time-keeping, and tide tables. At the time of their use, astrology was widely considered as much of a serious science as astronomy, and study of the two went hand-in-hand. The astronomical interest varied between folk astronomy (of the pre-Islamic tradition in Arabia) which was concerned with celestial and seasonal observations, and mathematical astronomy, which would inform intellectual practices and precise calculations based on astronomical observations. In regard to the astrolabe's religious function, the demands of Islamic prayer times were to be astronomically determined to ensure precise daily timings, and the qibla, the direction of Mecca towards which Muslims must pray, could also be determined by this device. In addition to this, the lunar calendar that was informed by the calculations of the astrolabe was of great significance to the religion of Islam, given that it determines the dates of important religious observances such as Ramadan.
from : "star", and : "to take".
In the medieval Islamic world the Arabic word (i.e., astrolabe) was given various etymologies. In Arabic texts, the word is translated as (, ) – a direct translation of the Greek word.
Al-Biruni quotes and criticises medieval scientist Hamza al-Isfahani, who stated:
In sources, there is also a folk etymology of the word as "lines of lab", where "Lab" refers to a certain son of Idris (Enoch). This etymology is mentioned by a 10th century scientist named al-Qummi but rejected by al-Khwarizmi.
Accessed 10 July 2014.
but it is known to have been used much earlier.
The misattribution comes from a misinterpretation of a statement in a letter written by Hypatia's pupil Synesius (),
which mentions that Hypatia had taught him how to construct a plane astrolabe, but does not say that she invented it.
Lewis argues that Ptolemy used an astrolabe to make the astronomical observations recorded in the Tetrabiblos. However, Emilie Savage-Smith notes
In chapter 5.1 of the Almagest, Ptolemy describes the construction of an armillary sphere, and it is usually assumed that this was the instrument he used.
Astrolabes continued to be used in the Byzantine Empire. Christian philosopher John Philoponus wrote a treatise () on the astrolabe in Greek, which is the earliest extant treatise on the instrument.
Modern editions of John Philoponus' treatise on the astrolabe are
or
repr. and translated into French
translated into English and included as part of
The mathematical background was established by Muslim astronomer Albatenius in his treatise Kitab az-Zij which was translated into Latin by Plato Tiburtinus ( De Motu Stellarum). The earliest surviving astrolabe is dated Islamic calendar 315 In the Islamic world, astrolabes were used to find the times of sunrise and the rising of fixed stars, to help schedule morning prayers (salat). In the 10th century, al-Sufi first described over 1,000 different uses of an astrolabe, in areas as diverse as astronomy, astrology, navigation, surveying, timekeeping, prayer, Salat, Qibla, etc.
(2025). 9780521800402, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521800402
The spherical astrolabe was a variation of both the astrolabe and the armillary sphere, invented during the Middle Ages by astronomers and inventors in the Islamic world. The earliest description of the spherical astrolabe dates to Al-Nayrizi (floruit 892–902). In the 12th century, Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī invented the linear astrolabe, sometimes called the "staff of al-Tusi", which was
The first known metal astrolabe in Western Europe is the Destombes astrolabe made from brass in the eleventh century in Portugal. Metal astrolabes avoided the warping that large wooden ones were prone to, allowing the construction of larger and therefore more accurate instruments. Metal astrolabes were heavier than wooden instruments of the same size, making it difficult to use them in navigation.
Herman Contractus of Reichenau Abbey, examined the use of the astrolabe in Mensura Astrolai during the 11th century.
Peter of Maricourt wrote a treatise on the construction and use of a universal astrolabe in the last half of the 13th century entitled Nova compositio astrolabii particularis. Universal astrolabes can be found at the History of Science Museum, Oxford. David A. King, historian of Islamic instrumentation, describes the universal astrolobe designed by Ibn al-Sarraj of Aleppo (a.k.a. Ahmad bin Abi Bakr; fl. 1328) as "the most sophisticated astronomical instrument from the entire Medieval and Renaissance periods".
English author Geoffrey Chaucer () compiled A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his son, mainly based on a work by Messahalla or Ibn al-Saffar.
The same source was translated by French astronomer and astrologer Pélerin de Prusse and others. The first printed book on the astrolabe was Composition and Use of Astrolabe by Christian of Prachatice, also using Messahalla, but relatively original.
In 1370, the first Indian treatise on the astrolabe was written by the Jainism astronomer Mahendra Suri, titled Yantrarāja.
A simplified astrolabe, known as a balesilha, was used by sailors to get an accurate reading of latitude while at sea. The use of the balesilha was promoted by Prince Henry (1394–1460) while navigating for Portugal.
The astrolabe was almost certainly first brought north of the Pyrenees by Gerbert of Aurillac (future Pope Sylvester II), where it was integrated into the quadrivium at the school in Reims, France, sometime before the turn of the 11th century. In the 15th century, French instrument maker Jean Fusoris () also started remaking and selling astrolabes in his shop in Paris, along with portable sundials and other popular scientific devices of the day. Detail by Ieremias Palladas 1612]] Thirteen of his astrolabes survive to this day. One more special example of craftsmanship in early 15th-century Europe is the astrolabe designed by Antonius de Pacento and made by Dominicus de Lanzano, dated 1420.
In the 16th century, Johannes Stöffler published Elucidatio fabricae ususque astrolabii, a manual of the construction and use of the astrolabe. Four identical 16th century astrolabes made by Georg Hartmann provide some of the earliest evidence for batch production by division of labor.
Greek painter Ieremias Palladas incorporated a sophisticated astrolabe in his 1612 painting depicting Catherine of Alexandria. The painting, entitled Catherine of Alexandria; in addition to the saint, showed a device labelled the 'system of the universe' (). The device featured the classical planets with their Greek names: Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon), Hermes (Mercury), Aphrodite (Venus), Ares (Mars), Zeus (Jupiter), and Cronus (Saturn). The depicted device also had celestial spheres, following the Ptolemaic model, and Earth was shown as a blue sphere with circles of geographic coordinates. A complicated line representing the axis of the Earth covered the entire instrument.
Many astronomical clocks use an astrolabe-style display, such as the famous Prague Orloj, adopting a stereographic projection (see below) of the ecliptic plane. In recent times, astrolabe watches have become popular. For example, Swiss watchmaker Ludwig Oechslin designed and built an astrolabe wristwatch in conjunction with Ulysse Nardin in 1985. Dutch watchmaker Christaan van der Klauuw also manufactures astrolabe watches today.
Above the mater and tympan, the rete, a framework bearing a projection of the ecliptic plane and several pointers indicating the positions of the brightest , is free to rotate. These pointers are often just simple points, but depending on the skill of the craftsman can be very elaborate and artistic. There are examples of astrolabes with artistic pointers in the shape of balls, stars, snakes, hands, dogs' heads, and leaves, among others. The names of the indicated stars were often engraved on the pointers in Arabic or Latin. Some astrolabes have a narrow ruler or label which rotates over the rete, and may be marked with a scale of .
The rete, representing the sky, functions as a star chart. When it is rotated, the stars and the ecliptic move over the projection of the coordinates on the tympan. One complete rotation corresponds to the passage of a day. The astrolabe is, therefore, a predecessor of the modern planisphere.
On the back of the mater, there is often engraved a number of scales that are useful in the astrolabe's various applications. These vary from designer to designer, but might include curves for time conversions, a calendar for converting the day of the month to the sun's position on the ecliptic, trigonometric scales, and graduation of 360 degrees around the back edge. The alidade is attached to the back face. An alidade can be seen in the lower right illustration of the Persian astrolabe above. When the astrolabe is held vertically, the alidade can be rotated and the sun or a star sighted along its length, so that its altitude in degrees can be read ("taken") from the graduated edge of the astrolabe; hence the word's Greek roots: "astron" (ἄστρον) = star + "lab-" (λαβ-) = to take. The alidade had vertical and horizontal cross-hairs which plots locations on an azimuthal ring called an almucantar (altitude-distance circle).
An arm called a radius connects from the center of the astrolabe to the optical axis which is parallel with another arm also called a radius. The other radius contains graduations of altitude and distance measurements.
A shadow square also appears on the back of some astrolabes, developed by Muslim astrologists in the 9th Century, whereas devices of the Ancient Greek tradition featured only altitude scales on the back of the devices. This was used to convert shadow lengths and the altitude of the sun, the uses of which were various from surveying to measuring inaccessible heights.
Devices were usually signed by their maker with an inscription appearing on the back of the astrolabe, and if there was a patron of the object, their name would appear inscribed on the front, or in some cases, the name of the reigning sultan or the teacher of the astrolabist has also been found to appear inscribed in this place. The date of the astrolabe's construction was often also signed, which has allowed historians to determine that these devices are the second oldest scientific instrument in the world. The inscriptions on astrolabes also allowed historians to conclude that astronomers tended to make their own astrolabes, but that many were also made to order and kept in stock to sell, suggesting there was some contemporary market for the devices.
Therefore, it should project:
When projecting onto the celestial equatorial plane, three concentric circles correspond to the celestial sphere's three circles of latitude (left side of the image). The largest of these, the projection on the celestial equatorial plane of the celestial Tropic of Capricorn, defines the size of the astrolabe's tympanum. The center of the tympanum (and the center of the three circles) is actually the north-south axis around which Earth rotates, and therefore, the rete of the astrolabe will rotate around this point as the hours of the day pass (due to Earth's rotational motion).
The three concentric circles on the tympanum are useful for determining the exact moments of and throughout the year: if the sun's altitude at noon on the rete is known and coincides with the outer circle of the tympanum (Tropic of Capricorn), it signifies the winter solstice (the sun will be at the zenith for an observer at the Tropic of Capricorn, meaning summer in the southern hemisphere and winter in the northern hemisphere). If, on the other hand, its altitude coincides with the inner circle (Tropic of Cancer), it indicates the summer solstice. If its altitude is on the middle circle (equator), it corresponds to one of the two .
When projecting the horizon onto the celestial equatorial plane, it transforms into an ellipse upward-shifted relatively to the center of the tympanum (both the observer and the projection of the north-south axis). This implies that a portion of the celestial sphere will fall outside the outer circle of the tympanum (the projection of the celestial Tropic of Capricorn) and, therefore, won't be represented.
Additionally, when drawing circles parallel to the horizon up to the zenith (almucantar), and projecting them on the celestial equatorial plane, as in the image above, a grid of consecutive ellipses is constructed, allowing for the determination of a star's altitude when its rete overlaps with the designed tympanum.
When projecting the celestial meridian, it results in a straight line that overlaps with the vertical axis of the tympanum, where the zenith and nadir are located. However, when projecting the 40° E meridian, another circle is obtained that passes through both the zenith and nadir projections, so its center is located on the perpendicular bisection of the segment connecting both points. In deed, the projection of the celestial meridian can be considered as a circle with an infinite radius (a straight line) whose center is on this bisection and at an infinite distance from these two points.
If successive meridians that divide the celestial sphere into equal sectors (like "orange slices" radiating from the zenith) are projected, a family of curves passing through the zenith projection on the tympanum is obtained. These curves, once overlaid with the rete containing the major stars, allow for determining the azimuth of a star located on the rete and rotated for a specific time of day.
(1992). 9780226316352, University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226316352
Astrolabes and clocks
Mechanical astronomical clocks were initially influenced by the astrolabe; they could be seen in many ways as clockwork astrolabes designed to produce a continual display of the current position of the sun, stars, and planets. For example, Richard of Wallingford's clock () consisted essentially of a star map rotating behind a fixed rete, similar to that of an astrolabe.
Construction
An astrolabe consists of a disk with a wide, raised rim, called the mater (mother), which is deep enough to hold one or more flat plates called tympans, or Clime. A tympan is made for a specific latitude and is engraved with a stereographic projection of denoting azimuth and altitude and representing the portion of the celestial sphere above the local horizon. The rim of the mater is typically graduated into hour, degrees of arc, or both. (2025). 052179143X, Cambridge University Press. 052179143X
Mathematical basis
The construction and design of astrolabes are based on the application of the stereographic projection of the celestial sphere. The point from which the projection is usually made is the South Pole. The plane onto which the projection is made is that of the Equator.
Designing a tympanum through stereographic projection
The tympanum captures the celestial coordinate axes upon which the rete will rotate. It is the component that will enable the precise determination of a star's position at a specific time of day and year.
The tropics and the equator define the tympanum
On the right side of the image above:
The horizon and the measurement of altitude
On the right side of the image above:
The meridians and the measurement of azimuth
On the right side of the image above:
See also
Footnotes
Bibliography
External links
Categories: Analog Computers, Ancient Greek Astronomy, Ancient Greek Technology, Astrometry, Astronomical Instruments, Astronomy In The Medieval Islamic World, Greek Inventions, Historical Scientific Instruments, Inclinometers, Marine Navigation, Mechanical Calculators, Navigational Equipment, Technology In The Medieval Islamic World, Scientific Equipment
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