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 ...

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 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 ...