Les Cowley wrote: > >I am looking for a book or references on the mathematics and design >of astrolabes. >
Some useful essays and works on the astrolabe are appended below. It may also interest subscribers to this list, that the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum in Chicago will publish a 2 volume catalogue of its remarkable collection of astrolabes next spring. The first volume is devoted to western astrolabes and astrolabe-quadrants. The second volume is devoted to eastern astrolabes and related Islamic instruments. Both volumes are interpretive--meaning that they contain essays and illustrations setting astrolabes into their social, historical, and scientific contexts. They include a comprehensive bibliography. The principal authors are Roderick and Marjorie Webster, and David Pingree. I wrote the interpretive essay, "Astrolabes: A Cross-Cultural and Social Perspective." These two volumes are the first in a series of catalogues, _Historic Scientific Instruments of the Adler Planetarium_. Volumes 3 and 4 are devoted to sundials and timefinding instruments. I am the author of these. Anyone with questions about the Adler catalogues, or wishing to receive early notice of their publication and the opportunity to buy copies, may contact me at the address below. Sara Schechner Genuth Editor Department of History phone: (301) 593-7144 Francis Scott Key 2115 fax: (301) 314-9399 University of Maryland email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] College Park, MD 20742-7315 ==================Some Astrolabe References====================== General works on the astrolabe include Robert T. Gunther, The Astrolabes of the World, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932); Willy Hartner, "The Principle and Use of the Astrolabe," in A Survey of Persian Art, ed. Arthur Upham Pope (London: Oxford University Press, 1939), 3: 2530-2554; and Idem, "Asturlab," Encyclopedia of Islam, new ed. (1960), 1: 722-728; both reprinted in Idem, Oriens- Occidens, 2 vols. (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1968-1984), 1: 287- 318; Henri Michel, Trait de l'Astrolabe (Paris: Gauthier- Villars, 1947); Leo Ary Mayer, Islamic Astrolabists and Their Works (Geneva: A. Kundig, 1956); John D. North, "The Astrolabe," Scientific American 230 (1974): 96-106; reprinted in Idem, Stars, Minds and Fate: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Cosmology (London: Hambledon Press, 1989), 211- 220; National Maritime Museum, The Planispheric Astrolabe (Greenwich: National Maritime Museum, 1976); Roderick S. Webster, The Astrolabe: Some Notes on Its History, Construction, and Use, 2nd ed. (Lake Bluff: Paul MacAlister & Associates, 1984); Sharon Gibbs with George Saliba, Planispheric Astrolabes from the National Museum of American History (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1984); A. J. Turner, Astrolabes, Astrolabe Related Instruments, The Time Museum: Catalogue of the Collection, ed. Bruce Chandler, vol. 1: Time Measuring Instruments, part 1 (Rockford, IL: The Time Museum, 1985); Owen Gingerich, "Zoomorphic Astrolabes and the Introduction of Arabic Star Names into Europe," pp. 89-104 in From Deferent to Equant: A Volume of Studies in the History of Science in the Ancient and Medieval Near East in Honor of E. S. Kennedy, ed. David A. King and George Saliba, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 500 (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1987); David A. King, Islamic Astronomical Instruments (London: Variorum Reprints, 1987); Idem, "Die Astrolabiensammlung des Germanischen Nationalmuseums," trans. Kurt Maier, 1: 101-114, 2: 568-603 in Germanisches National Museum, Focus Behaim Globus, exhibition catalogue edited by Gerhard Bott, 2 vols. (Nuremberg: Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 1992).
