Re: VMs: Starry Starry Nights

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 23:33 01/08/2003 -0700, Dana wrote:
> A very nice site that may be of interest to some:
> http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/starrymessenger.html

This also contains a good picture of a 16th Century volvelle (bottom right 
of page for links to detailed enlargements):-
        http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/modbooks.html

Final paragraph of page:-
        An important category of early-modern astronomical work is the
        instrument-book: a treatise explaining the construction and/or
        use of a particular instrument or class of instruments. Such
        texts were written on familiar devices such as armillary spheres,
        astrolabes, sun-dials, quadrants, and globes, as well as to
        describe and advertise instruments newly invented by the author.
        Treatises on globes were often produced as manuals to
        accompany a specific instrument or pair of instruments. In
        addition, some printed books supplied paper instruments,
        either in the form of illustrations of devices which could be
        cut-out and pasted onto wood for use, or mobile parts and
        volvelles within the volume itself. The Astronomicum Caesareum
        (1540) of Peter Apian is the most famous of the books which
        contained astronomical volvelles, but there are numerous
        other examples which date from the early-modern era. It
        should be noted, however, that volvelles were another
        legacy of the manuscript age.

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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