The Astrolabe Project

I’ve been lax on updating the blog lately. Not because I’ve not been interested, but because I’ve been busy.

First off: I have received two requests to modify the Astrolabe Generator to support the southern hemisphere. This took a bit of recoding and rearranging some of the functions, but the result is now up and running at http://astrolabeproject.com/build. Latitudes supported now run from 70 South to 70 North, with the exception of those latitudes within 1 degree of the equator. Those of you who want to make Southern Hemisphere astrolabes can now do so.

Latitudes less that 1 degree or greater than 70 degrees still cause problems with some of the calculations. For example, at 0 degrees latitude the horizon line is not a circle, but a straight line, and above 70 degrees some of the intersection code breaks for the unequal hours routines. I will work on this: The Equator problem should be simple, and the problems with 70 degrees plus will be an interesting programming exercise. I’ll keep you posted.