Astrolabe

Building a Model Astrolabe
Dominic Ford
October 2010
This document describes the electronic file archive which accompanies the
authors paper of the same title in the Journal of the British Astronomical
Association. It also contains images of all of the components which need to be
printed out to build a model astrolabe tailored for a latitude of 52 N 2 . The
astrolabe presented in this document is a slightly modernised version of that
described in Geoffrey Chaucers c. 1391 Treatise on the Astrolabe, and has been
constructed following a prescription similar to that described in Eisner (1975,
1976a, 1976b).
The images and text in this document may be duplicated, redistributed
and/or modified under the terms of the GNU General Public License as pub-
lished by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
your option) any later version. The only restriction placed on the duplication
of this document is that the copyright notices must remain intact.
This document can be downloaded from the In-The-Sky.org website, at
http://in-the-sky.org/astrolabe/index.html (index page),
and the accompanying files may be downloaded from
http://in-the-sky.org/astrolabe/astrolabe.zip (zip archive).
Assembly Instructions
To build a model astrolabe tailored for a latitude of 52 N , Figures 1, 2 and 3
should be printed out onto paper, or more preferably onto thin card. Figure 4
should be printed onto a sheet of transparent acetate. The two sides of the
mother (Figures 1 and 2) should be glued rigidly back-to-back, perhaps sand-
wiching a piece of rigid card. The rete, printed onto transparent acetate3 , should
be placed over the climate, which for simplicity is incorporated into the front of
the mother in this document.
The rule and the alidade should be placed on either side of the astrolabe:
the rule, marked out with a declination scale, should rotate over the front of the
mother; the alidade should rotate over the back of the mother. The two tabs on
the side of the alidade should be folded out to form a sight used for measuring
the altitudes of celestial and terrestrial objects. The whole construction may
then finally be fastened together by placing a split-pin paper fastener through
the centre.
2 Alternative versions of this document prepared for other latitudes are available from the
authors website: http://in-the-sky.org/astrolabe/index.html
3 Historically, the rete would have been made of the same material as the rest of the
astrolabe and marked with arrows showing the positions of prominent stars. As much of the
material of the rete as possible would then have been cut away to allow the climate below
to be seen. We use transparent plastic here because it is so much more practical than the
traditional form of rete.
BUILDING A MODEL ASTROLABE 2
Astrolabes for Other Latitudes

The components needed to build astrolabes tailored for latitudes other than
52 N can be found in the accompanying electronic file archive, which can be
downloaded from the In-The-Sky.org website, at
http://in-the-sky.org/astrolabe/index.html (index page) or
http://in-the-sky.org/astrolabe/astrolabe.zip (zip archive).
The simplest option is to use an alternative version of this document prepared
for another latitudes; these are stored in the astrolabes folder of the archive.
Alternatively, individual images of the various parts of the astrolabe model
are stored in the astrolabe parts folder of the archive, and each is available in
PDF format, or as a GIF bitmap image (.gif). If these are used, then all of the
required components must be printed at exactly the same scale in order to be of
consistent sizes when fitted together. For example, the option to enlarge each
of the PDF documents to fit the page size must not be selected in the printer
setup options in Adobe Acrobat Reader, and the GIF images must be printed
at a common dots-per-inch resolution.
For latitudes in the northern hemisphere, the following images astrolabe parts
folder should be printed:
mother back.??? The back of the mother of the astrolabe. This image
also appears in Figure 1, and is not latitude dependent.
mother front north.??? The front of the mother of a northern-hemi-
sphere astrolabe. Note that, in contrast to Figure 2, the rete is not incor-
porated into the mother here. The hours advance clockwise around the
edge of the mother.
rule north.??? The rule and the alidade of a northern-hemisphere
astrolabe.
rete north.??? The rete of a northern-hemisphere astrolabe.
climate xxN.??? The climate of the astrolabe, customised to the re-

quired latitude xx N.
For latitudes in the southern hemisphere, the following images should be
printed. Note that a different rete is required, showing the southern sky, and
that the declination scale on the rule also changes sign:
mother back.??? The back of the mother of the astrolabe. This image
also appears in Figure 1, and is not latitude dependent.
mother front south.??? The front of the mother of a southern-hemi-
sphere astrolabe. Note that, in contrast to Figure 2, the rete is not incor-
porated into the mother here. The hours advance anticlockwise around
the edge of the mother.
rule south.??? The rule and the alidade of a southern-hemisphere
astrolabe.
rete south.??? The rete of a southern-hemisphere astrolabe.
climate xxS.??? The climate of the astrolabe, customised to the re-

quired latitude xx S.

c 2010 Dominic Ford. Distributed under the GNU General Public License,
version 3. Document downloaded from
http://in-the-sky.org/astrolabe/index.html
Customised Astrolabes
The astrolabe images presented here were produced using PyXPlot, an open-
source vector graphics scripting language developed by the same author. PyX-
Plot has a website4 with extensive documentation, and is available as a standard
package in a number of Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Debian and Gen-
too. Unfortunately, it is not available for Microsoft Windows at the present
time.
The PyXPlot scripts used to generate the images in this document are in-
cluded in the accompanying file archive and may be modified to generate cus-
tomised astrolabes. For example, to produce an astrolabe with your own choice
of saints days or birthdays on the back of the mother, the file RawData/Saints-
Days.dat should be modified. A python script, main.py, is included which
rebuilds all of the image files shipped in the astrolabe parts folder.
References
[1] Ford, D.C., J. Brit. astr. Ass., 131(1), 33 (2012).
[2] Chaucer, G., Treatise on the Astrolabe, in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. L.D.
Benson (Boston, 1987)
[3] Eisner, S., J. Brit. astr. Ass., 86(1), 18-29 (1975)
[4] Eisner, S., J. Brit. astr. Ass., 86(2), 125-132 (1976a)
[5] Eisner, S., J. Brit. astr. Ass., 86(3), 219-227 (1976b)
4 http://www.pyxplot.org.uk

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Figure 1: The back of the mother of the astrolabe.

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Figure 2: The front of the mother of the astrolabe, with combined climate.
Should a climate for a different latitude be required, the accompanying file
archive should be downloaded. This includes alternative versions of this docu-
ment for any latitude on the Earth at 5 intervals.

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(a) Rule (b) Alidade
Figure 3: Left: The rule, which should be mounted on the front of the astrolabe.
Right: The alidade, which should be mounted on the back of the astrolabe.

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Figure 4: The rete of the astrolabe, showing the stars of the night sky. This
should be printed onto a piece of transparent plastic; most stationers should be
able to provide acetate sheets for use on overhead projectors, which are ideal
for this purpose.


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Astrolabe

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Building a Model Astrolabe

Astrolabes for Other Latitudes

climate xxN.??? The climate of the astrolabe, customised to the re-

climate xxS.??? The climate of the astrolabe, customised to the re-

[5] Eisner, S., J. Brit. astr. Ass., 86(3), 219-227 (1976b)

Figure 1: The back of the mother of the astrolabe.

(a) Rule (b) Alidade

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