The Astrolabe Project

In part two we began examining the functionality provided by the various lines and arcs visible on the front of a typical sine quadrant. The use of the sine and cosine arcs was fairly straight-forward, being related to the basic function of the device (converting from angle to sine/cosine and back). Next we are going to […]

In the previous post, I described the basic features of the Sine Quadrant, and described two of its most common functions: measuring angles and converting back and forth from angle to sine/cosine. [If you need it, here is a link to the PDF of the example sine quadrant you can print out to follow along.] In […]

The development of mathematics and the sciences through-out the medieval period spawned a range of clever, elegant tools for observation and computation. Devices such as the Armillary Sphere and the Astrolabe are familiar sights in the art of both Europe and the Middle East; but lesser known are a class of tools known as quadrants. Quadrants come […]

(Ok, so I’m a bit late with my essay “What I did on My Summer Vacation”, sue me.) I committed to three activities related to this project this past Pennsic: Firstly, I taught a pair of two-hour sessions of my class “The Astrolabe in Theory and Practice” at Pennsic University. In addition I displayed my […]

Wow, how time flies. It is almost a year since I last posted here.  New Years Resolution: Post at least once a week. Yeah, let’s see how long That One lasts… Not that I’ve been idle. In the intervening months I have gotten quite a bit done, I just haven’t been sharing. Since my last […]

In this week’s email: “I use your astrolabe constantly for my artwork, I make extremely long exposure pinhole photographs tracing the suns path over the course of a day to half a year. www.matthewallred.com  I use your astrolabe to determine rise / set times and declination as well as the transit alt for the sun. Then plan which time […]

Yeah, I’m still plugging away, between burnout and other commitments I haven’t had a lot of time for this project. This has changed with the turning of the year. First up, I have made a major update to the Astrolabe Generator. I finally figured out a way to digitize a set of zodiac symbols and […]

I hate script-kiddies and their ilk. A few days ago the site was hit with a PHP injection attack that had its pages redirecting visitors to malware infested sites.  I was on the site less that two days before I discovered this problem, so hopefully not too many people where afflicted. I wiped the site […]

Even though I haven’t been posting, I have been busy. In addition to the changes to the Astrolabe Generator mentioned in the previous post, I was asked to teach a class at a small gathering of medieval reenactors last month, and so had to to get my class handout updated ahead of schedule, and a […]

“The astrolabe is everything technology should aspire to be. It is beautiful. It is functional. It was, for its time, the very pinnacle of technological achievement, yet even today its simple effectiveness is striking.” A lovely essay on the beauty of science, and belief. The Beauty of the Astrolabe