With modern GPS, we often don’t think too hard about how to navigate, but GPS does not work very well on the open sea. That is why modern ships are equipped with technology such as radar and a ...

And watching someone recreate the feat, such as by building an astrolabe by hand, can be very appealing too. The astrolabe is an ancient astronomical tool of incredible versatility, allowing the ...

The identification of an eleventh-century Islamic astrolabe bearing both Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions makes it one of the oldest examples ever discovered and one of only a handful known in the ...

What I'm holding is a portable model of the heavens, in the shape of an exquisite, circular brass instrument that looks a bit like a large brass pocket watch, and it's called an astrolabe.

The astrolabe was a mathematical instrument which was used to carry out astronomical measurements, to calculate the positions of the sun and the stars, and to tell the time. This one was made in ...