Instructor: Owen Caerleon
Location: [Vingolf] A&S 10
Class limit: 20 people
Class fee: $5
The Astrolabe is a mechanical instrument that can be used to calculate the positions of the stars and sun in the sky. By the Middle Ages, many other calculating instruments were incorporated into it, and it became a major teaching tool for astronomers throughout the Middle East, Europe, and Northern Africa.
Appearing before 100 BCE, the astrolabe was developed significantly in the early medieval Islamic world and proliferated throughout Africa, Europe, and India. Astrolabes are a visible part of a deep tradition of science and mathematics that was known before the Middle Ages. The breadth of locations where astrolabes were constructed shows just how widespread this learning was. The astrolabe was often combined with other instruments and so could be used for many types of calculations. Metal astrolabes also became status symbols, and the beauty of their mathematical patterns were embellished by instrument makers to produce works of art that survive to this day.
In this class, we’ll make a paper astrolabe and walk through a few of the ways to use it. We’ll look at animations of the night sky to see the things in nature the astrolabe was used to calculate. We’ll see a bit of the mathematics needed to construct it and see some examples of beautiful astrolabes from the past.