Maker Faire Nova

Astrolabes were on display at Maker Faire Nova. The Maker Faire at George Mason University was this past Sunday. A good time was had by all. I had a prime site for my display and had a constant stream of visitors. On display were all my various paper versions of astrolabes and quadrants, along with […]

Laser-cutting with a Metallic Finish

I received a nice email from a user in Argentina, and he has given permission to post some of his photos and notes on how he achieved the lovely result. “I started generating the EPS files with your software for my southern latitude, and then added some more stars to the rete and a clever-but-mostly-useless […]

Concerning the use of astrolabes as a teaching tool

Simulators

One of the problems with learning to use an astrolabe is that in order to work through the class notes the student needs to first print out and assemble their own astrolabe from the provided materials. This takes time and materials that may not be ready to hand. What I’ve wanted to do for a […]

Introducing the Advanced Astrolabe

For quite some time now I have been basing my class, and my discussions here, on an astrolabe with fairly basic options. Linked to the right you will find a zip file containing the components for this basic astrolabe, along with the handout for my class. But there is more to the astrolabe than just […]

Advanced Astrolabe Functions: Estimating the direction to Mecca.

Given that the math and sciences of the Middle East were a major driving force in the development of the astrolabe[1], it is reasonable that some of the advanced functions are related to the dominant religion of the area, Islam. Today we will discuss using two of the astrolabe’s advanced features to estimate the direction […]

Another astrolabe in work

This one is a metal astrolabe. A work in progress that uses some of the output of the Astrolabe Generator. Images used with permission.

An Astrolabe in Work

I got this last night via Twitter: https://twitter.com/cforchino/status/434176137216794626 Nice work, he has a steadier hand than I do. Please do email or tweet me your astrolabes, I’ll be glad to post them. Addresses are on the right.  

The Astrolabe as an Artist’s Tool

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 […]

Major Update!

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 […]