Musa, Spherical astrolabe

INTRODUCTION
- Man and the stars
SECTION I
- The dawn of astronomy: Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Biblical Cosmos
SECTION II
- The cosmos becomes a sphere
SECTION III
- The geometry of the cosmos
SECTION IV
- The skies of Islam
SECTION V
- Evangelisation of the cosmos
SECTION VI
- The Renaissance of Astronomy
SECTION VII
- Galileo: the cosmos through the telescope
SECTION VIII
- From Galileo to Newton

Sundial and pointer to the Mecca (qibla)

Gores of Ibrâhîm ibn Saîd al-Sahlî al-Wazzân’s celestial globe

Zoom

Mūsa (15th century)
Spherical astrolabe, 1480-1481
Oxford, Museum of the History of Science, inv. 49687

Astrolabes show the heavenly vault on a flat surface. This is the only complete example of a spherical astrolabe to have come down to us. The rete records the positions of 19 fixed stars.